Step right up, step right up! See the California Legislature
Traveling Circus and Side Show! Dazzle and amaze your friends with
stories or even pictures of bizarre legislative behavior and wacky
bills from Sacramento! Step right up!
Step right up, step right up! See the California Legislature Traveling Circus and Side Show! Dazzle and amaze your friends with stories or even pictures of bizarre legislative behavior and wacky bills from Sacramento! Step right up!
It is always amusing and yet sobering to discuss activities of the California Assembly and Senate when visiting friends or relatives in red state areas of the country. The elites on cities of the East and West coasts plus Chicago refer unflatteringly to these areas of the U.S. as “flyover” country. Citizens in the red states literally stand with mouths agape when a particular California bill or law is described.
I first observed this when I described for friends the enactment into law of AB196 in 2003. This is a law that mandates that businesses, including small businesses, hire and employ without discrimination, cross-dressers and transgendered people. This was done by changing the legal definition of gender to “identity, appearance, or behavior, whether or not that identity, appearance, or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the victim’s sex at birth.” This qualified these groups for protections under existing gender laws.
Gray Davis signed this bill into law in 2003. Red-staters are frankly flabbergasted at the actual passage of such a law. Picture the plight of the Christian or other faith-oriented bookstore that is not allowed to enforce a certain dress code for store personnel. This law protects an employee that chooses to dress as a man on one day and as a woman on the next, for example. Our Assemblyman Simon Salinas voted yes on this bill.
This year’s circus is better than ever. Describing the activities of the California Legislature is certain to cause jaw-dropping and eye rolling in the red states. It seems there are some four bills related to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered (GLBT) agenda in California. Senate Bill 1441 has been passed and signed into law by Governor Swartzenneger. Senate Bill 1437 has passed the Senate and is in the Assembly. Assembly Bills AB606 and AB1056 have passed the Assembly and are before the Senate. All of these bills have been authored and passed by Democrat legislators in the Senate and Assembly.
Here is a brief description of the bills in question.
n SB1441, now part of the California legal code, provides full legal protection from discrimination under “any program or activity that is conducted, operated, or administered by the state or by any state agency, is funded directly by the state, or receives any financial assistance form the state. This bill adds sexual orientation as a protected class along with race, national origin, etc. Interpretation: homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals must have their lifestyle fully supported and not discriminated against by faith-based colleges that accept students with Cal grants, for example.
n SB1437 prohibits textbooks and school-sponsored activities from “reflecting adversely” on transsexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality. Materials could no longer talk about married husband and wife without also talking about “gay marriages.”
n AB606 authorizes the California Superintendent of Public Instruction to arbitrarily withhold state funds from any district that does not adequately promote transsexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality. It repeals the current state law that prohibits transsexual, bisexual, and homosexual curriculum from being forced upon local schools. It also authorizes the Superintendent to develop new curriculum that affirms the above groups.
n AB1056 authorizes $250,000 in taxpayer dollars to promote transsexual, bisexual, and homosexual lifestyles in ten school districts. This would create a model program for the rest of the state.
Taken in sum these bills, driven by GLBT political activists, represent a frontal assault on families and faith-based institutions of learning. These bills infringe on citizens First Amendment rights to freedom of religion, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Many creeds consider these activities to be sinful. Therefore they cannot in conscience promote them.
Our current Assemblyman, Simon Salinas, has voted yes on each of the Assembly bills. Senator Jeff Denham has voted no on each Senate bill. San Benito County has always had strong family ties and active religious participation. We deserve legislative support for families from each of our legislators. I find the record of Democrat Simon Salinas on family issues deplorable, and urge strongly that the respective candidates for his vacated Assembly seat in the Nov. 7 election state their positions clearly on family issues.
Al Kelsch is a Hollister resident who writes a weekly column for the Free Lance that appears on Saturday. Write to him at [email protected]
