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More gay-hating in the legislature

The hate amendment that passed into the Oklahoma state constitution last November was bad enough, but now, one of the sex-obsessed GOoPers from Tulsa wants to make very sure those damn homos stay in their place - and while he may not know where that is, he's pretty sure it's not near him.

The real problem is that, last year, Oklahoma County elected Jim Roth, a gay county commissioner. The GOP wasn't able to rationalize the hate machine against him because the county commissioners have nothing to do with social policy. Yet now that they've revised the county's discrimination policy to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, political affiliation, and other characteristics.

The GOP's stranglehold on state government, including Oklahoma County (home of Oklahoma City and the state capitol), is furious that they couldn't stop Roth's election or the anti-discrimination policy. They have since decided that if they can't have it their way, they won't play at all.

The other two good-ole-boy Oklahoma County commissioners have refused to do any useful work this year, spending the taxpayer money on new furniture for their offices, new vacuum cleaners, and so on. Why? Because they won't support any measure that Roth supports, even if it's a no-brainer. They voted to disband the county budget board that approved the anti-discrimination measure over their opposition, but the idea of putting all monetary decision in the hands of these two fools didn't fly. This past week, the two of them voted to define "sexual orientation" as applying only to heterosexual relationships, so that the anti-discrimination ordinance won't prohibit firing gay people simply for being gay.

That is so stupid that it probably won't work, so the pharisees in the state legislature took their turn. HB 1746 passed very quietly this week - you won't find mention of it in The Oklahoman or even at Google News. If there hadn't been a short report on the bill on OETA's Oklahoma News Report (and that may cost them more funding right there), I wouldn't have heard of it at all. (The AP did cover it, though I didn't see it in my extensive news reading.)

State Rep. Dan Sullivan (R-His Own Ass) trumpeted its passage with this headline: "Legislators Vote to Oppose Expansion of Sexual Discrimination Policies." Like most GOP bill titles (The "Clean Skies" act, the "PATRIOT" act, etc.), that's a plain lie. The bill does not "oppose" expanding discrimination policies - it voids any existing discrimination policy from any state or local agency that prohibits discrimination against gay people.

I think. This guy is so far in the hate world that he can't even write "sexual orientation." The bill's policy section reads, in its entirety, as written by Sullivan:

Any agency or governmental entity of this state that develops and implements a nondiscriminatory policy based on sexual preference shall be null and void.

Now, remember that this bill passed the Oklahoma House 65-28 this past week as you consider these points:

  1. The language of the bill, as written, would not nullify and void any such nondiscrimination policy. It nullifies and voids the agency or governmental entity that developed and implemented the policy. Read it again. Sullivan was too stupid to know the difference. Three other House co-authors and one Senate co-author finally got the wording right in the version that was passed, although they didn't change it until they considered it on the House floor that very day. It does answer an old question: it takes four GOP state legislators to write a single coherent sentence.

  2. Even if it were properly targeted, it doesn't ban lawsuits based on sexual orientation, just on sexual "preference." The Oklahoma County provision it intends to repeal prohibits discrimination against sexual "orientation."

Yes, that's right - the Oklahoma haters are so far behind the national rhetoric that they're still trying to make laws based on the idea that it's OK to be gay as long as you never, ever, ever act on it. Let's dissect wonder-legislator's press release, shall we?

The Tulsa Republican said the bill would protect state and local governments from opening the floodgates for frivolous litigation.

"This bill will ensure that we do not extend our policies in Oklahoma beyond current federal case law in the area of discrimination," Sullivan said. "We do not need to be adding a new cause of action in the state of Oklahoma for discrimination."

So Oklahoma should never bar discrimination that the federal government allows? I don't recall that part of the GOP platform.

He said the new nondiscrimination policy adopted by Oklahoma County officials brought many problems to light and prompted the legislation.

"The Oklahoma County policy creates a whole new set of cases that can now be filed based upon 'discrimination' based on 'sexual preference,'" Sullivan said.

I can believe that Sullivan is one of those guys who actually speaks with 'quotation marks.' Of course, since the Oklahoma County policy bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, not preference, the quotes are a bit moot.

Oklahoma County officials recently revised the county's equal employment opportunity policy to bar discrimination based on sexual preference. However, Sullivan said that policy may have implications far beyond the intent of local officials.

"The question is what is 'sexual preference' and how do you define it?" Sullivan said. "Most people have an idea in their mind about what it means, but it's much broader than just the issue of homosexuality. It can mean anything.

That's why only the most hate-filled right-wing knuckle-draggers use the term "sexual preference", Danny, but you already knew that, didn't you? Or are you concerned that the policy was going to expose Oklahoma County to a raft of lawsuits from people who say they were fired because they "prefer" the missionary position?

"Existing discrimination laws were intended to protect individuals from discrimination based upon immutable characteristics. Protecting activity based on behavior is contrary to the purpose of our discrimination laws."

So you're against laws protecting people from religious discrimination? Religion is obviously not an immutable characterstic, Danny, or no one would be "born again." Or is it just that you'd rather try to look like you're not a fire-breathing hate-filled homophobe while proving that you are?

Yup, that's what it is. Here's the AP article quoting Sullivan:

Sullivan said the measure was not inspired by homophobia.

''From my point of view, it is not a gay-bashing bill,'' Sullivan said. ''I believe any discrimination is wrong.''

He said discrimination policies that include sexual preference would effectively give homosexuals more legal rights than heterosexuals. He also said the policies would result in some ''very absurd cases'' being file in Oklahoma courts.

This bill is not about "opposing" expansion of anti-discrimination policies, no matter how Sullivan tries to spin it. It forces Oklahoma County and the state attorney general's office - the only two state agencies that have discrimination policies that protect gay people - to void those policies, and prevents any city, state, town, school, or any other state-controlled agency from choosing not to discriminate against gay people.

It's also manifestly unconstitutional, as the US Supreme Court decided nine years ago in Romer v. Evans. Colorado's Amendment 2 was the same thing - a law prohibiting government agencies from adopting policies that prohibit anti-gay discrimination. (I'm sorry for the wordiness, but it's necessary - the bill didn't mandate anti-gay discrimination, but it prevented any agency from stopping it, so the double negative is accurate.)

Colorado also tried defending this seething hatred of a law by saying that it gave gay people "special rights," like Sullivan did to the AP. The Supreme Court slapped that down hard:

The State's principal argument that Amendment 2 puts gays and lesbians in the same position as all other persons by denying them special rights is rejected as implausible. The extent of the change in legal status effected by this law is evident from the authoritative construction of Colorado's Supreme Court - which establishes that the amendment's immediate effect is to repeal all existing statutes, regulations, ordinances, and policies of state and local entities barring discrimination based on sexual orientation, and that its ultimate effect is to prohibit any governmental entity from adopting similar, or more protective, measures in the future absent state constitutional amendment - and from a review of the terms, structure, and operation of the ordinances that would be repealed and prohibited by Amendment 2. Even if, as the State contends, homosexuals can find protection in laws and policies of general application, Amendment 2 goes well beyond merely depriving them of special rights. It imposes a broad disability upon those persons alone, forbidding them, but no others, to seek specific legal protection from injuries caused by discrimination in a wide range of public and private transactions.

[...] Even if, as we doubt, homosexuals could find some safe harbor in laws of general application, we cannot accept the view that Amendment 2's prohibition on specific legal protections does no more than deprive homosexuals of special rights. To the contrary, the amendment imposes a special disability upon those persons alone. Homosexuals are forbidden the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint. They can obtain specific protection against discrimination only by enlisting the citizenry of Colorado to amend the state constitution or perhaps, on the State's view, by trying to pass helpful laws of general applicability. This is so no matter how local or discrete the harm, no matter how public and widespread the injury. We find nothing special in the protections Amendment 2 withholds. These are protections taken for granted by most people either because they already have them or do not need them; these are protections against exclusion from an almost limitless number of transactions and endeavors that constitute ordinary civic life in a free society.

Legislators have a wide variety of backgrounds, and Sullivan is in his first term, so you might be tempted to forgive him for not knowing his law is blatantly unconstitutional. Except, as it turns out, he's a lawyer.

Daniel Sullivan, R-Tulsa, is an attorney and served as a Tulsa County reserve deputy sheriff for five years. He received a bachelor≠s degree in business administration at Northeastern Oklahoma State University, and earned his law degree at the University of Tulsa. He is vice chairman of the NSU Foundation and a member of the Kiwanis Club of Tulsa. Sullivan, 41, is a Tulsa native and fourth-generation Oklahoman.

So, at this point, you can believe one of two things about Sullivan:

  1. He's your typical hate-filled right-winger who wants to make sure gay people have absolutely no legal protection while pretending that he's reasonable and hates discrimination, or

  2. He's far, far too stupid to be writing laws and speaking in public, because he clearly doesn't understand anything he's doing.

Neither speaks well for the Tulsans who voted for him.

The really scary part is that I would have sworn the Oklahoma News Report said that either this bill or one like it (or maybe an amendment to it that failed) would have also made null and void any anti-discrimination policy of any private or public business in Oklahoma if it prohibited discrimination against gay people. I can't find any record of such a bill in the House legislative system - only Sullivan's bill contains the term "sexual preference," and only an attempt to add "sexual orientation" to Oklahoma's hate crime law contains that term, so it doesn't seem like it made it to the light of day. But given what they did pull, I can easily believe they tried it.

Just remember: this thing passed 65-28 on a 10:15 PM vote. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the Oklahoma House by 57-44 this session, thanks to term limits that also ushered in first-class legal minds like Sullivan. If this gets more attention online, I eagerly await Sullivan's response bill to nullify and void the Internets.

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