After blaming the state's budget fiasco partly on a piano, it's time to go after the LGBT's
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed an executive order Tuesday rescinding a protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender state workers put into place eight years ago by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
Sebelius’ executive order in 2007 said state workers could not be discriminated against, fired or harassed because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Brownback, a Republican, issued an additional executive order affirming that state employees could not be discriminated against because of their race, religion, gender, age or country of national origin.
“This Executive Order ensures that state employees enjoy the same civil rights as all Kansans without creating additional ‘protected classes’ as the previous order did,” Brownback said in a short statement that did not specifically refer to sexual orientation or gender identity. “Any such expansion of ‘protected classes’ should be done by the legislature and not through unilateral action.”
Sounds like Brownback's allies in the legislature are going to
get right on drafting legislation
Rep. John Rubin, a Shawnee Republican, a former federal judge, defended the governor’s decision from a legal standpoint, saying that if sexual orientation isn’t a protected class at the federal level, then the issue should be up to the Legislature to decide.
“Until sexual orientation is either added in Kansas as a protected class under our law or added federally, which it isn’t now … I think that’s the Legislature’s prerogative,” Rubin said. “Whether they should be a protected class is a separate question. … But it isn’t a protected class until we say it is.”
Right...things are going swimmingly at the federal level in addressing LGBT rights in the
workplace.