• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Kansas Gov Sam Brownback strips LGBT state employees of non-discrimination protection

Any objective person should be able to see past the opinion in a by-lined piece such as Luke Brinker's Brownback item posted on a partisan site such as Salon and be able to glean what are the facts being presented. In fact I would think the ability to weigh sources, to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak, would be a basic requirement of critical thinking.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Appeal to emotion has its place, but in this case you haven't give any evidence other than how you feel. Are you claiming that reality is based on how you feel?
Click to expand...

How I feel is based on reality. And reality says that the piece of trash known as Sam Brownback is ruining Kansas. For a summation of facts showing that see my OP.
 
Last edited:
In reference to Marplots's legitimate question about whether the egregious removal of protection is related to other fiscal events, if the removal of protection exempts state agencies from liability when they discriminate, then the two sins could overlap.
 
bruto said:
In reference to Marplots's legitimate question about whether the egregious removal of protection is related to other fiscal events, if the removal of protection exempts state agencies from liability when they discriminate, then the two sins could overlap.
Click to expand...

Both are common themes in this administration, along with ignoring Kansas Supreme Court rulings that the state is underfunding education according to its own constitution.

So... yeah. It's all one big interconnected mess that pretty much seems to be more run by the ChristoLibertarian Brothers Koch than it is by Brownback, if you see what they're shooting for. There's also an FBI investigation into mishandling some lobbying situations on top of all that... no charges yet.

Not wanting to derail, but here's a bit more about what Kansas been up to lately:

Censorship/spreading distrust in education: http://www.kmbc.com/news/kansas-bil...from-distributing-offensive-material/31122754

(It's already sort of illegal to show children porn, BTW... this goes beyond that into vague territory that could make distributing Shakespear's Hamlet or sex ed materials a misdemeanor... the PG film version of Romeo and Juliet I saw in High School that actually showed Juliette's breasts at one point [in a non-sexual manner] would almost certainly be a crime)

...and a proposed bill that says college professors can't use their official titles when talking about politicians in op-ed pieces (can't find the link, but I'm serious... that's exactly what it is). This one is unquestionably targeted at a particular group that was critical of Brownback and others during the last election.

So yeah... we already know that one of the Kochs' stated goals is to eliminate public education altogether (not only public education, but compulsory education in its entirety)... the long-term plan is pretty clear here. We're in deep doodoo if people don't stop automatically checking anything with an (R) next to its name during state elections. I'm not saying we have to go Democrat, but this state is going somewhere that I don't think anywhere close to the majority of us want to go, otherwise. We've caught a virus that can't help but lead us right into something akin to The Dark Ages in Europe.

Honestly, I don't think this is mere incompetence.

Thank all the extant or non-extant gods that the Senate is more moderate than the house though (still overwhelmingly Republican, but more sensible), because if the worst of the things going on in The House got through... umm... let's just say it'd be really, really bad. Stuff like eliminating no-fault divorces, giving religious people (and only religious people) the right to discriminate against gays for services (including firemen and police officers, considering there was no language preventing that inclusion), a bill preventing non-profit companies from running gyms (targeted at a specific YMCA), etc. There was also a bill reducing the protection against the corporal punishment of children in schools... but that was proposed by a Democrat, and was probably an attempt at satire to expose the fact that it is still legal in Kansas up to a point (although I don't know her intentions for sure, since I never saw a proper explanation). Basically, it increased "leaving red marks" being okay to minor abrasions or welts or something... don't remember the exact details of the language.
 
Last edited:
What would happen to Kansas if the LGBT employees in the public service there up and quit? This legislative looks to put them in peril at work so why should they work? Chances are there is a noteworthy percentage of them in the public service. So without them would the state be thrown into chaos? Or grind to a halt?
 
Norman Alexander said:
What would happen to Kansas if the LGBT employees in the public service there up and quit? This legislative looks to put them in peril at work so why should they work? Chances are there is a noteworthy percentage of them in the public service. So without them would the state be thrown into chaos? Or grind to a halt?
Click to expand...

My highlighting...

Maybe they have families to support and mortgage payments to make. As I understand it, economic performance in Kansas has hardly been spectacular so finding another job may be difficult, especially so for LBGT employees when the governor has given the green light for discrimination.

Maybe they are dedicated public service employees who wouldn't dream of quitting and leaving their clients and cow-orkers in the lurch like this to make some kind of point in a pyrrhic fashion.

Also, they'd be doing his dirty business for him, why should they put themselves in difficulty to effect his policies ?
 
marplots said:
I didn't know that. Quite a list of Presidents weighing in. Good for them.

ETA: It seems odd that this is done (and undone) by executive fiat at the state and federal level.
Click to expand...

Because it means you don't have a messy fight over trans people being able to go to the bathroom, you see when ever any of this kind of antidiscrimination measure gets passed as law. Of course it means it only effects those groups that the executive has authority over not all businesses.
 
Mitchell314 said:
I'm afraid I have to agree with marplots on this one. As low as Brownback scores on any scale of human decency, part of the responsibilities of a skeptic is to choose an objective source as possible. One: partisan hackery will already preset many reader's opinion before weighing the merits of the main topic; and Two: the most dangerous materials to critical thinking are those that play heavily to your biases outside of discussing and presenting the facts.
Click to expand...

And yet this is exactly the problem with reporting many things, that of false balance. To avoid being viewed as partisan you have to present the pro and anti vaccination sides equally and say we really don't know if HIV causes AIDS some doctors think it does and some don't.
 
The Don said:
My highlighting...

Maybe they have families to support and mortgage payments to make. As I understand it, economic performance in Kansas has hardly been spectacular so finding another job may be difficult, especially so for LBGT employees when the governor has given the green light for discrimination.

Maybe they are dedicated public service employees who wouldn't dream of quitting and leaving their clients and cow-orkers in the lurch like this to make some kind of point in a pyrrhic fashion.

Also, they'd be doing his dirty business for him, why should they put themselves in difficulty to effect his policies ?
Click to expand...


Hence the need for workers' rights to withdraw their labour. Or is it illegal to go on strike in the USA?

It wouldn't surprise me, given the shameful history of murdering union organisers and government forces attacking strikers.
 
asydhouse said:
Hence the need for workers' rights to withdraw their labour. Or is it illegal to go on strike in the USA?

It wouldn't surprise me, given the shameful history of murdering union organisers and government forces attacking strikers.
Click to expand...

Oh, by all means strike (if it's legal and if the response isn't to immediately fire all strikers) but the question Norman Alexander asked was whether they should quit.

It's illegal for firefighers, police and teachers to strike in Kansas according to this source

http://www.cepr.net/documents/state-public-cb-2014-03.pdf

According to this source, public sector employees cannot legally strike in Kansas

http://www.xperthr.com/employment-law-manual/public-sector-labor-relations-kansas/3057/

I cannot comment on the accuracy of either source but if they are accurate it is not surprising.
 
I was thinking along those lines too. The effected employees might be able to file a class action suit and try and convince a judge it was not a "neutral" act. That they were being singled out as a subtle way of inviting discrimination against them or at least signaling to supervisors and managers that such would be tolerated. Or even if it wasn't deliberate it would have that effect.

The problem is, if you get into a legal battle with someone like Brownback I doubt he would a) fight fair, he'd probably try and enflame public opinion against LGBT employees and b) at some point he would try and retaliate.
 
Again... going slightly off topic, but just to prove that there's a new idiocy every single day in this state if you keep informed about it:

http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article9711821.html

True, it's not even Brownback per se, but it is symptomatic of the problem. Somehow I don't think that say... being active in AU or a random atheist group or - "god" forbid - an LGBT rights group would qualify for the language: "regularly participating in a church or other similar social group" as it is used in this bill. However, it probably would include some suicide-pact-death-cults as long as they give lip service to the name "Jesus" should one crop up in the area.
 
Last edited:
Manopolus said:
Again... going slightly off topic, but just to prove that there's a new idiocy every single day in this state if you keep informed about it:

http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article9711821.html

True, it's not even Brownback per se, but it is symptomatic of the problem. Somehow I don't think that say... being active in AU or a random atheist group or - "god" forbid - an LGBT rights group would qualify for the language: "regularly participating in a church or other similar social group" as it is used in this bill. However, it probably would include some suicide-pact-death-cults as long as they give lip service to the name "Jesus" should one crop up in the area.
Click to expand...

Isn't gay marriage legal in Kansas (by a federal court ruling, IIRC)? I don't see anything in this bill that would exclude a gay couple from participating in the program. I also don't see anything that makes them specifically employees of the state subject to Brownback's EO.
 
A Conservative supporting the mistreatment of LGBT people. I'm surprised, I tell ya. I thought they were all about equality.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom