The hideous bill that passed in the Kansas House today is unlikely to survive Senate scrutiny said the Senate President Susan Wagle (R) in an e-mail this evening. The Wichita Eagle is reporting that the phones have exploded at the State Capital since the passage of the bill in the House, the vast majority of callers urging lawmakers to flush this cruel and discriminatory proposed piece of legislation.
"After an initial review, I’ve grown concerned about the practical impact of the bill,” Wagle said in an e-mailed statement. The bill would allow public and private employees alike to refuse service based on religious views of marriage.
“A strong majority of my members support laws that define traditional marriage, protect religious institutions, and protect individuals from being forced to violate their personal moral values,” Wagle said. “However, my members also don’t condone discrimination.
“If we cannot find ample common ground to ease legitimate concerns, I believe a majority of my caucus will not support the bill."
Well, finally a voice of sanity and reason coming out of Kansas and from a powerful perch at that. Not that I'm enamored of Wagle and other Kansas Republican Senators who are against marriage equality. But knowing there were Kansans who were thoughtful and decent enough to take a stand today and say enough is enough to their representatives is heartening. This vile bill was clearly a step too far by the religious whackadoodles who thought denying a segment of their population basic human rights and dignity should be written into law.
Sadly, we will probably see a lot more hateful actions like this take place across the country as extremists make last ditch efforts to keep bigotry alive and well. The fight for our equality is not over as today's shameful vote in the Kansas House has proven. There will be more moments of pure hate that we will have to endure as we fight for our equality, but make no mistake, we are winning and will prevail. That is what makes this a great country.