In Sochi with the winter Olympics, Russia’s anti-gay laws and overall intolerance of homosexuals has been mocked and protested on multiple social media sites, and by many major companies such as Google, Visa and many other companies.
The Russian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) network explains that in Russia, the bill against homosexuals passed in June 2013 states that any propaganda for “non-traditional sexual relations” would not be tolerated. Such propaganda earns a fine of 1 million rubles, equivalent to 27,972 US dollars. This foreign intolerance has gained incredible opposition from many all over the United States.
However, turn your view more inwardly. Think back to Tuesday, Feb. 11. Here in Madison, Ala., it was a relaxing day off school with a pleasing layer of snow. But in Kansas, business was plummeting, which forced Americans off their high horses against Russia’s anti-gay stance.
Slate.com explains the Kansas House of Representatives easily passed a bill referencing “religious liberty” that would effectively legalize segregation based on sexual orientation. Any public services such as stores and even hospitals would be fully within the law to refuse service to gay couples. Not to mention that the bill ensured that any lawsuit made by the individuals’ refused service would be lost, automatically siding with the businesses.
Devout Christian Connor Sawyer takes offence to the bill claiming religious reasons for such a restricting bill, saying that it “paints the church in a bad light” for its oppression, and that blaming the law on religion “blatantly disregards having faith in God’s plan and forces religion into the public’s face”.
Thankfully, the republican state quickly responded to an overwhelming outcry about the bill. Only two days later they came forward, recognizing the terrible bill for what it was, and stated that the its death would come imminently in state senate.
But two similar bills in Idaho, though withdrawn, paint an ugly picture for more republican states in the United States. While there is nothing anywhere in the United States which compares to the Russian discrimination against the LGBT community, the mere existence of these states is concerning.
However because of the public outcry about these bills, others like these will likely never become full blown laws in any state. The suggestions of such heinous bills may even bring more support to the LGBT community. Because of public understanding about how harmful the bill is to homosexuals, the lawmakers who proposed it are now under harsher scrutiny.
Nothing of the like has shown up in Alabama yet, despite the state being just as overwhelmingly republican. Though the Alabama still doesn’t recognize gay marriages, doesn’t have any hate crime laws protecting homosexuals, and remains ambiguous over LGBT adoption, the discriminatory laws would not be out of place.
The opposition of this bill and others like it is hopeful for the United States, making the country introspect back on the battle against discrimination of sexual orientation that that is still being fought. The United States does not yet have complete equality based on sexual orientation, but from the extremity of the failed bill in Kansas, we may yet come one step closer to being a country where rational adults are not prosecuted for who they love.
