Guardian: Kansas’ anti-gay bill: another attempt to force warped Christianity on others

The Guardian has a good opinion piece summarizing the attempts by the religious right in the US to legalize discrimination against gays, currently playing out in Kansas. The State’s House of Representatives pass a bill that would allow religious freedom to trump other freedoms specifically where an individual (including government employees) or private business would be allowed to refuse service to gays if they feel it compromises their religious views. The Kansas bill was halted so we were spared seeing a return of the discrimination African-Americans faced into the 1960s. Businesses would have been allowed to effectively post signs stating ‘No gays’.

Author Jill Filipovic summarized the bill’s essential step beyond the current protection of religious beliefs, “the Kansas law tried to give religious people who dislike homosexuality not only the right to live according to their beliefs, but also the right to exclude gay people from any facet of public life over which the religious have power.” Citizens are allowed to hold and live by their beliefs, however in a country proud of its’ respect for the individual, a vocal few feel they can impose their views on everyone else.