It sounds like a headline from The Onion, but it’s not.
The reasoning for this bill makes it sound even more like something that is parody - it’s an anti-agenda 21 bill, the right seems to think agenda 21 is a conspiracy to undermine property rights and american sovereignty.
Never mind the fact that implementation of agenda 21 is completely voluntary and non-binding …
(America blog) - The Kansas legislature is about to empower the state to quarantine people with HIV and AIDS. The local Fox affiliate says the legislation is expected to become law in the next few weeks.
Republicans in the Kansas state legislature promise that the quarantine power will never be exercised against people with AIDS, but they then shot down a Democratic-led effort, by Senator Marci Francisco, to exempt people with HIV and AIDS from the quarantine provision.
Funny how they don’t ever plan on using it against people with AIDS, but then refuse to exempt people with AIDS from the quarantine they promise they’ll never use.
Kansas Bill Would Ban Abortion Clinic Employees From ‘Bringing Cupcakes’ To Their Child’s School
Kansas Republicans are once again resuming their war against a woman’s right to choose and this time they are targeting abortion clinic employees in a very personal way.
(Addicting Info) - A Kansas House committee passed HB 2253 on Wednesday along party lines, with Republicans pushing the bill through while Democrats opposed it. The bill is a broad spectrum of anti-abortion laws sponsored by GOP state Rep. Lance Kinzer, who is the poster boy for many of the outrageous abortion bills introduced and passed in Kansas these days. Included in the bill are measures declaring that life begins at conception, measures that keep women from deducting the cost of abortion procedures on their tax forms, and measures that affect “information the Kansas Department of Health and Environment distributes on abortion and fetal development,” according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
But these measures weren’t the ones that Democrats objected to the most. Republicans apparently included a section in the bill that would affect employees of abortion providers in a most personal way. The Capital-Journal reports:
“Much of the debate centered on a portion of the bill that bars anyone associated with an abortion provider from working in a public school. It is meant to prevent districts from contracting with groups like Planned Parenthood to provide sexual education materials.”
Democratic Rep. Emily Perry opposes HB 2253, and pointed out another egregious section in the bill designed “to prohibit parents from going in and volunteering at their child’s school if they work at a place that provides abortion services.” Perry’s claim was later confirmed by Republican Rep. Arlen Siegfreid, who stated that the bill would “prohibit an abortion clinic secretary from ‘bringing cupcakes to’ school for his or her child’s birthday party.”
An amendment to fix the outrageous section was offered and passed but only after it was “tweaked to limit it to those who work for abortion providers and volunteer in schools, but not those who volunteer in abortion clinics and work in schools.” In other words, employees of clinics that provide abortion services are banned from volunteering at schools, even if their own children attend the school for which they wish to volunteer.
What is WRONG with these people???
“Party of small government”?
Where’s you liberty and freedom now?
Forcing women to get transvaginal ultrasounds: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonaldwanted to force every woman seeking an abortion to go through the extremely uncomfortable and medically unnecessary procedure of a transvaginal ultrasound — sticking a medical wand far into a woman’s vagina to get a clearer ultrasound image.
Ordering women to cremate and bury their miscarried fetus: A huge abortion omnibus bill in Michigan could force women who miscarry to cremate the miscarried fetuses. This comes at no small expense to the woman: cremation of a fetus costs hundreds of dollars, and interment can be additional thousands. The bill has been passed by the Michigan House, and is awaiting a vote by the Michigan Senate.
Requiring doctors to lie to female patients: In Kansas, Republicans tried to force doctors to tell women that they faced risk of cancer from having an abortion. That is patently untrue, and making doctors say that it was true would be, in effect, requiring them to lie to their patients.
Making a dying woman consult two doctors before she can get a life-saving abortion: The New Hampshire legislature just overrode a veto by the Governor, forcing through a law that bans “partial birth” abortions. The law only reinforces federal law, but has the additional requirement that any woman who is exempt from the abortion ban because her life is at risk must visit not one but two doctors before she can get the procedure to save her life. For many rural women, especially those facing life-threatening conditions, this is near impossible.
Mandating people pay extra to give medical device companies a tax break: Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN) worked so hard to protect medical device companies from having to pay, that he has instead passed their costs onto the consumer — regular Americans — by increasing the cost of health coverage.
(via sarahlee310)
Kansas lawmakers voted overwhelmingly today to pass a bill that opponents say legalizes discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Members of both parties joined together in the House on the 89-27 vote, according to the Lawrence Journal-World. If the Senate follows suit and Governor Sam Brownback signs the bill, as he has indicted, then anyone could opt out of anti-discrimination laws that protect gays and lesbians by claiming they violate their “religious freedom.”
For example, an employer could fire someone if they discovered the employee was gay. Or a landlord could kick a renter out of their home. The religious exemption extends past places of business to universities, where students or instructors could opt out of a school’s anti-discrimination policy.
The idea for the bill, called the “Kansas Preservation of Religious Freedom Act,” came in reaction to the college town of Lawrence passing an anti-discrimination ordinance that included sexual orientation. The new state law would nullify that and any other local anti-discrimination ordinance that included sexual orientation by granting citizens the right to opt out if they felt it conflicted with their religious beliefs.
“I don’t think an ordinance should trump other people’s religious rights,” said Rep. Jan Pauls, a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee that heard testimony about the bill. During a forum earlier this year, Pauls gave an example to explain why she backs the bill, saying an employer should be allowed to fire a “cross dresser.”
“The question is personal belief as far as religion,” she said. “Should that be trumped by forcing people to then support a lifestyle that they don’t support due to their religion?”
“If this law were passed,” Pauls explained, “people could bring up their religion as a reason that they did not want to follow the ordinances.”
All kinds of wonderful news tonight, huh?
What the fuck is wrong with these people.
A bill that allows pharmacists and doctors to deny women access to contraception has been signed into law by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. This new law is just one of many bills that the Republican governor has signed since he came into office. He has recently signed legislation that pressures abortion clinics with new regulations, legislation that imposes long waiting times to get an abortion, and legislation that bans insurance companies from covering abortion procedures.
But there is no war on women and both sides are exactly the same. /s
If Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Lt. Gov. Jeff Coyler get their way, it will be legal to discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the state – as long as you do it in the name of religion.
A Lawrence, Kan., ordinance that offers broader protections against discrimination than state laws, prevents outright forms of bias. But a bill being considered by the Kansas House of Representatives, HB 2260, would overturn that ordinance.
The bill essentially says government can’t stop anyone from exercising their religious rights unless it can show that religious exercise must be limited to advance a compelling government interest. HB 2260 would even let individuals sue the government if their exercise of religion “has been burdened, or is likely to be burdened.”
Coyler said Feb. 14 during a hearing on the bill that “the federal government’s recent attempts to trample the religious liberties of millions of Americans must be at the forefront of your debate,” according to the Lawrence Journal-World. “Religious liberty is at the heart of who we are as a people.”
This makes no sense. Even if President Barack Obama were trying to limit religious freedom (and he isn’t) with rules that would require employers to cover birth control for employees, that isn’t directly related to the civil rights of GLBT persons in Kansas. Coyler is making a leap in logic that is similar to people who say that legalizing same-sex marriage will lead to people wanting to marry chairs. It’s nonsense.
Read more at Wall of Separation from Americans United for Separation of Church and State
What if I was a member of a religion that said it was okay to take a club and beat the shit out of anyone with who even mildly pissed me off. What if it was in an ancient religious document saying that I could do this.
What if I said assault laws didn’t apply to me and enforcing them would limit my religious freedom.
Yeah, this is the same thing.
A Kansas House committee is scheduled to take up a bill Wednesday that would exempt doctors from malpractice suits if they withheld medical information to prevent an abortion. The measure would also take away tax credits for abortion providers, remove tax deductions for the purchase of abortion-related insurance coverage and require women to hear the fetal heartbeat. The bill includes several provisions, which passed in other states and now face federal lawsuits. The bill would also require women be told about potential breast cancer risks from abortions, even though medical experts discount such a connection.
…
Among the most contested provisions of the bill is the section that would exempt a doctor from a medical malpractice suit if a woman claims the physician withheld information about potential birth defects to prevent her from having an abortion. In addition, a woman would not be able to sue if she suffers health damage from a pregnancy as a result of information withheld from her to prevent an abortion. A wrongful death suit could still be filed, however, if the mother died.
For the love of fuck. When will this shit stop???
(Source: sarahlee310)
Since Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s first day in office, he has made it clear that he no problems blurring the church-state line.
In January, he all but turned his swearing-in ceremony into a religious revival, and he noted his intention to use religion as a way to help the state face its economic and social problems. It now seems those plans are well on their way.
According to the Kansas City Star, Brownback has thrown his support behind a “faith-based” program intended to make sure parolees don’t go back to prison. Called Out4Life, the approach was developed in 2007 by Prison Fellowship, an evangelical Christian organization.
Out4Life doesn’t deny that it proselytizes. Pat Nolan, a vice president with Prison Fellowship, told the newspaper that Out4Life does “give [parolees] the goodness of the gospel,” but he insisted that they don’t have to accept Christ in order to receive help.
Americans United’s Senior Litigation Counsel Alex J. Luchenitser told the Star that Brownback is heading into constitutionally dubious territory.
“The states need to provide nonreligious re-entry programming that all inmates can comfortably take part in,” AU’s Luchenitser said.
Luchenitser knows this issue well. When Prison Fellowship took public funds to run an inmate counseling program in Iowa a few years ago, he argued the case that successfully challenged the program. (Americans United v. Prison Fellowship Ministries)
Prisoners should not be pressured by the state to listen to a religious lecture or participate in any religious activities, period. But Brownback doesn’t seem to care much about that constitutional concern and appears to be a on a crusade to impose religion on all Kansans.
Earlier this year, Brownback appointed Rob Siedlecki as secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. Siedlecki served as senior counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Task Force on Faith-Based Initiatives during the George W. Bush administration. Like Brownback, he believes state government should use religion as a tool to address societal problems.
Brownback has also replaced other top staff members in the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. Several of these positions, which were once nonpartisan, were replaced by partisan employees being moved in from Washington, D.C., and Florida.
The whole worries state officials, who admit to being uneasy with Brownback’s emphasis on “faith-based” solutions.
“I’m all for religion,” said Kansas House Minority Leader Paul Davis (D-Lawrence). “We have to be very careful with the state imposing that on people.”
Brownback should be careful, but that is probably too much to hope for. He is a longtime Religious Right ally and often appeared at far-right events. While serving in the U.S. Senate, he was a resident of the infamous “C Street House” and has always been a vocal foe of church-state separation.
In 2005, he told the Wichita Eagle that courts have “profoundly misinterpreted” the separation of church and state.
That’s where he has it wrong. The courts have simply held that the Constitution requires the government to remain neutral on religion. Brownback has no business pushing his beliefs on Kansans, including prisoners.
Why do people like this keep getting elected?
Free thinking, science, liberal politics, equal rights, freedom from religion, opinions, and random awesomeness.
