As if the Kim Davis story wasn’t bad enough, we have more bad news out of Kentucky. The state legislature has a bill moving along to allow discrimination against interracial couples among other groups.
Almost 50 years ago (yes! 50!), the Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that interracial marriage should be legal. It also made discrimination of interracial couples for any reason illegal. It used the equal protection clause in the Constitution to rule that discrimination based on race or other arbitrary criteria is illegal.
This past summer we finally achieved marriage equality in the Supreme Court ruling Obergefell v. Hodges.
I don’t know if they are going to try to use a Tardis or a Delorean, but Kentucky seems to be trying to throw us back in time to the 50s era of segregation and discrimination.
Unfortunately, there are still people against “racial mixing.” This bill, SB 180, would allow people to discriminate against others for any reason as long as they use their religion to defend themselves. This could also lead to discrimination of gay people, atheists, and Muslims. This bill would allow private businesses AND the government to refuse service to anyone for religious reasons. We have Federal laws that are supposed to protect us from discrimination, so I guess Kentucky’s going backwards on that.
This shouldn’t be too much of a shock considering the Tea Party idiot Governor they elected. Their governor, Matt Bevin, was elected in November likely because of his support of Kim Davis. He went and visited her in jail, and he was advocating for her during his campaign. He even tried to get the outgoing governor, Steve Beshear, to change the marriage the marriage license form for Kim Davis, but Beshear refused.
This bill could have some disastrous consequences if passed. It could turn back the clock on civil rights reforms. We need to stop letting these people allow discrimination because of their religion.
Featured image by Gage Skidmore, available under Creative Commons 2.0 license.
