Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Rep. Childers: Wyoming promotes modern-day version of South's anti-miscegenation laws

The Casper Star-Tribune provided this tally of Wyoming House votes on HB74: Bill to promote discrimination against LGBT citizens (that's my translation of this legislation):
Here's how members of the Wyoming House voted Monday on House Bill 74, which would stop recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions performed outside Wyoming.
In favor (32): Blikre, Bretchtel, Botten, Buchanan, Burkhart, Campbell, Cannady, Davison, Edmonds, Eklund, Gay, Greear, Harshman, Harvey, Hunt, Jaggi, Kasperik, Kroeker, Krone, Lockhart, Loucks, Lubnau, Madden, McKim, Miller, Peasley, Petersen, Quarberg, Semlek, Shepperson, Stubson, Teeters.
Against (28): Barbuto, Berger, Blake, Bonner, Brown, Byrd, Childers, Connolly, Craft, Esquibel, Freeman, Gingery, Greene, Illoway, McOmie, Moniz, Nicholas, Patton, Pedersen, Petroff, Roscoe, Steward, Throne, Vranish, Wallis, Zwonitzer (Dan), Zwonitzer (Dave).
Excused: Goggles.
I am glad to see that my Rep., Mr. Nicholas, voted against this ridiculous bill. He's brand new and I didn't vote for him in 2010 but I may next time.

Many of the yay votes come from the expected sources, especially Amy Edmonds of Cheyenne. Very disappointed with the anti-gay vote by usually moderate Rep. Tim Stubson of Casper. What was he thinking?

Here's another telling snippet from the CST article:
State Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, who has been one of the leading opponents of anti-gay marriage bills in the House, compared HB74 to Jim Crow laws in place when he was growing up in Texas in the 1950s. 
"What we're doing with this law is basically the same situation that the state that I grew up in and many other Southern states did -- they denied the right of a black person to marry a white person," Childers said. "Now what we're doing here is with gays."
In the heat of argument, Rep. Childers talked about Jim Crow laws when he meant anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited marriage between whites and blacks. Or maybe it's a reporter error. You can look it up.

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