Oh, to be Gay and Married in Worland

Wyoming is beset by an influx of gay and lesbian couples, married in another state, who want their unions blessed by the State Legislature.

Meanwhile, shadowy gunmen stalk pregnant women, hoping to take out pre-born Wyoming citizens before they grow up to be cowboys (or even cowgirls).

If you were unaware of these twin crises, you haven’t been reading the past week’s reports from the Wyoming Legislature.

Sen. Gerald E. Geis, a Republican (naturally) from Worland, sees hordes of married gay people sneaking into the state. These couples, hitched in Braintree or Provincetown (Massachusetts is the only U.S. state that grants marriage licenses to same-sex couples), want to be treated as the married-couple-next-door when they arrive in Worland. "We should not have to honor same-sex marriages in Wyoming that were authorized in some other state," said Geis, sponsor of a bill to do just that. On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed it.

If it becomes law, the hopes and dreams of gay people everywhere will be dashed upon the rocks of Wyoming politics-as-usual. They clamor to become married couples in a state that has record rates of divorce and spousal abuse and meth addiction, a state of high suicide rates and low wages. What same-sex couple from Worcester would not want to move to Worland?

Speaking of spousal abuse, Republican Senator John Barrasso of Casper, who waves around his M.D. when it suits his politics (kind of like Bill Frist in the U.S. Senate), seeks to revive a bill that would make "homicide of an unborn child" a crime. Barrasso was first alerted to the crisis pertaining to in utero murder during the Laci Peterson murder case two years ago. Fearing that Wyoming husbands would also kill their pregnant spouses and dump their bodies in the Pacific Ocean while carrying on illicit affairs, he brought up the bill. He was deterred then but not now. The bill, Senate File 118, passed through the Senate Labor, Health, and Social Services Committee on a 5-0 vote.

Steve Erfelt, president of Right to Life Wyoming, said that the bill does not affect the status of abortion and requires that both the woman and the child have to be killed.

Sharon Breitweiser, head of NARAL Pro-Coice Wyoming, opposes the bill because "it elevates the status of the fetus without addressing the problem of violence against woman."

To anyone who thinks this bill has nothing to do with abortion – there’s a drawbridge over Dry Creek I’d like to sell you.

Keep up with the Legislature by going to the legisweb site.