Effort seeks to prohibit anti-gay discrimination

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri group may soon start circulating petitions for a ballot measure aimed at making it illegal to discriminate against gays and lesbians in the state.

Aaron Malin, director of Missourians for Equality, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/UAjpr5 ) that the goal is to get the issue before voters in 2014. The effort must still pass several administrative hurdles with the Missouri Secretary of State’s office before supporters can begin collecting signatures.

Democratic state lawmakers have proposed similar legislation for more than a decade. Those bills have never made it to a floor vote. Malin says the Legislature is far more conservative than Missourians in general and that the group contends the best chance for passage is through a vote of the people.

Discrimination in housing and employment is illegal in Missouri based on race, religion, national origin, gender, age and disability. Legal experts say that while it also is illegal to discriminate against transgender people in Missouri, the law doesn’t prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

At a House hearing on one of the bills last year, a member of the state attorney general’s staff testified that the civil rights division had to ignore complaints about discrimination against gays and lesbians because it is not barred by state law.

“It’s wrong for people to be fired or evicted from their homes based on sexual orientation,” Malin said. “There’s the potential for Missouri to become one of those places where people realize this is no longer an issue of what is politically popular, it’s a matter of what’s right.”

Some efforts to fight discrimination at the state level have been successful. Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, quietly signed an executive order two years ago that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation for jobs in the state executive branch.

Several Missouri cities have passed ordinances to outlaw discrimination against gays and lesbians, including St. Louis and several suburban towns, along with Kansas City and Columbia. Springfield recently considered similar language.

Last week, voters in four states passed measures in favor of gay marriage. Malin believes that was evidence that popular opinion has shifted on gay-friendly legislation.

Missourians for Equality must get about 150,000 signatures to get the discrimination measure on the ballot.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com

More like this story

eileen10 6 months, 1 week ago

There shouldn't be a need for this except for all the self rightous biggots who think they rule the world. Have all the answers. Condemn. Look down on. Judge. And their no better than anyone else but they don't see it like that. Well guess what biggots. The "different people" are God's children too. Let Him take care of it so just go on about your business and leave His children alone. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone........

eileen10 6 months, 1 week ago

I don't accept the behavior of racists and pedophiles. Do you?

Sequoia 6 months, 1 week ago

Pedophilia and homosexuality, like all sexual attraction, is probably a combination of nature and nurture, like everything else.

But the point is that when we talk about homosexual rights, we're talking about two consenting adults. So it is different than pedophilia, which involves a minor and therefore is a crime.

The moral line isn't drawn by referring to "naturalness," because, really, how much of our lives are "natural"? Are cars immoral because they aren't "natural"?

The moral line between homosexuality and pedophilia is related to the balance of power, not anything having to do with "nature."

tonto_goldberg 6 months, 1 week ago

Well stated. They are both deviant behaviors but with vastly different levels of risk to the general public. It's important for people to keep in mind that most pedophiles are nominally straight, as in heterosexual. If we ignore the data on rogue priests and assistant college football coaches, virtually all pedophiles are straight.

asb 6 months, 1 week ago

Homosexuality is not deviant behavior, it is minority behavior. Deviant = wrong, and homosexuality is not wrong, except from a faith-based perspective.

bluesfan13 6 months, 1 week ago

So are you saying pedophillia, being a rapist, or being a psychopath ISN'T because of nature?

eileen10 6 months, 1 week ago

Can't spell. It's bigot. Did I judge? If so...oh well. I call it like I see it.

eileen10 6 months, 1 week ago

Well I haven't been arrested yet for picking my nose. I do hesitate to dig for gold when out and about. Rather tacky if there's no tissue available but in a pinch a shirt sleeve will do. Don't you hate it when you have a hard sneeze and boogie boos go flying out and land on some unsuspecting person? I never have figured out how to handle that.

asb 6 months, 1 week ago

Equating gay rights with the right to bugger children is a perfect logical weapon, gone wrong on November 6th. When a moral code is based on a specific dogma, available only through one specific faith, it isn't a moral code, it's repression. A secular moral code (called moral relativism by Christian extremists) is based on common values held by nearly all faiths and defined by custom and law, and is based on reality rather than dogma. When the political process is free of the grip of religious extremists, we're all better off. The extremists must have the right to speak, but we cannot give them the reigns of political power. They must be specifically excluded, and have been in the US for over two centuries. When major piles of corporate money and a major entertainment outlet call this long held exclusion of dogma from power the War On Christianity, we all suffer. It's actually just common values-based morals holding extremes in check. The GOP has pandered to the Christian extreme long enough that they are now stuck with the Taliban-style result. They could've appealed to more widely held Christian values as they had done traditionally, but empowerring the nuts has, in effect, nutted them at the national level, and many local levels as well. Reason and reality-based faith would not ban gay marriage today, and would not pander to race and cultural narrowness, and would get them more votes.

Sequoia 6 months, 1 week ago

Evangelicals are not kingmakers anymore. They are just another group with a seat at the table. Now they have to talk with the rest of the country, not just boss them around. How do you think that conversation will go, if your position is that anyone who disagrees with you is immoral or "secular"? Americans are still faithful. That faith just takes more forms now than it used to.

The next generation of Christians now realizes how much of the faith has been lost by evangelicals' thirst for power. A new generation of leaders who can accept reality as it is, not as they would prefer it to be, is now called for.

theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/election-2012-marks-the-end-of-evangelical-dominance-in-politics/265139/

JCLifer 6 months, 1 week ago

Uh, this society is not stable and hasn't been stable for decades.

Perhaps heteros can learn from the gays on how to make a marriage work and last.

Keep religion out of my government. Keep the religious word separate from the governance world. Keeping them separate will promote strong government and strong religion. History has shown over and over that there is nothing but trouble when you star mixing government with religion

There is no good reason to mix the secular and the spiritual worlds. If you want to have relgion in your government, go join the Taliban.

Sequoia 6 months, 1 week ago

Certainly leaders have to pick and choose moral principles to act upon. Justice, for example, is a moral principle which may justify one law or the other. You don't need to be religious to believe that justice is a good thing.

Lifer's point, I think, is that politicians have to explain and justify policies in a way that everyone can understand.

A leader must appeal to ALL the people. A leader who says that a policy is justified by religion isn't going to persuade anyone except those who already agree with that religious proposition.

In a free, democratic and rational society, like ours, any government policy must be grounded in objective reason that can be verified and tested by everyone.

You can't just say "It's my religious belief." Well, so what? It may not be my belief. But, if you say, "this policy promotes justice," then we have a starting point for a conversation.

bluesfan13 6 months, 1 week ago

I think it's already BEEN proven that being a pedophile is part of who that person is. The difference being, a pedophile (if they act upon their urges) forces those feelings upon another person who hasn't given (or is unable to give) their consent. Your argument about gay rights leading to pedophile rights are simply scare tacticts.

online_editor 6 months, 1 week ago

I removed some comments that included personal insults directed at other forum participants. Please avoid that and focus on issues related to the article. Thank you. --Rick Brown, online editor, News Tribune

newone 6 months, 1 week ago

Sorry for my comments Editor, I just have no tolerance for intolerance! :-)

spelchek 6 months, 1 week ago

It's a two way street, or at least it's supposed to be.

connor 6 months, 1 week ago

If you think the reason our government has not supported gay marriage nor embraced some form of 'sexual choice" equality is because of an Evangelical power play which is a code (The Liberals love to accuse Conservatives of using code so turnabout and all that) word for White Males, think again.

The truth is one group has been attacked, incarcerated and oppressed more than any other by government intervention into religious beliefs and moral laws and that group is not the LGBT community. It is heterosexual White Men and it started way back 150 years ago or more. Several Christian sects, not just Mormon, are open to polygamy and any polygamous enclave discovered is raided and the leaders, always men, are incarcerated.

And guess which group is always outraged and bigoted against polygamous groups the most?

So all of you Liberals who are so convinced anyone opposed to alternative lifestyles are bigots should perhaps begin supporting those sects which embrace the polygamous lifestyle as well. If the Federal government moves to recognize alternative marriages and lifestyles of a sexual nature than there are a number of so called sex offenders that need to be freed and they aren't homosexual either.

Some how I imagine your "open minded outrage" at people being oppressed doesn't extend to that particular demographic though.

JCLifer 6 months, 1 week ago

While I do not feel the need to "support" polygamous lifestyles, I do feel a certain amount of pity for these people who choose to endure living with more than one spouse. I cannot imagine the hell that they put up with.

tonto_goldberg 6 months, 1 week ago

Imagine two mothers- in-law, both coming to visit for the holidays.

JCLifer 6 months, 1 week ago

OMG!!!

RobHunterJohnson 6 months, 1 week ago

Just think if they had to take all those wives to the BOAT, or Mcky dees! Rob

cinkisses 6 months, 1 week ago

I don't know some days having someone else to take my husband off my hands and let them be annoyed by him sounds like a good idea. Maybe I could get my house completely clean for once :)

jcguy25 6 months, 1 week ago

You also have to keep in mind, many of these groups, did not give the women a choice. They were married off to an adult male member of the group as teenagers. So an underage girl forced to be married and have intercourse with an adult male not of her choosing. Yes he needs to be in jail and again as with pedophilia is not comparable to two consenting adult homosexuals marrying.

connor 6 months, 1 week ago

Not really the point actually. The government has proclaimed the alternate marriage lifestyle of several different religious sects to be illegal. Pedophilia is not the question here in my opinion as several sects have been raided that contained no pedophilia and attempting to paint all polygamist as pedophiles for a the actions of a few is no different than dragging out a few homosexuals who were also pedophiles.

So I guess the new "Lefty" interpretation of what is sexually permitted is...

It's between two adult people period.

Three or four is just deviant I guess?

jcguy25 6 months, 1 week ago

Uh it is the point when you are saying one group has been attacked and oppressed more than the LGBT community. And I said "many" that are incarcerated from this group are due to the fact they were marrying underage girls. Other instances of polygamist arrests are due to husbands marrying more than one woman without their knowledge. I'd say very few are incarcerated just because they were married to multiple consenting adult women.

Paroquet 6 months, 1 week ago

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