I Just Don’t Understand What's Wrong With Wanting To Treat Everyone Equally

But the Republicans seem to have a problem with that; in Oklahoma they wanted to pass a law regulate Uber and Lyft riding-sharing services and in the law they wanted to include a non-discrimination provision for LGBT people.

Even Your Uber Ride Has Become a Gay Rights Battleground
Care2
By Steve Williams
April 19, 2015

The legislation passed the Oklahoma House with relatively few problems, but in the Senate it hit a stumbling block. As introduced, the legislation contained standard nondiscrimination protections and, as a way to reflect the nondiscrimination policies of the main ride sharing services, also contained gay and transgender protections that simply stated LGBT passengers should expect to be treated with the same dignity and civility as other riders.

Republican Senator Jason Smalley was not happy with this and re-wrote the House version of the legislation so as to delete these protections. ”I believe if a private business owner wants to serve or not serve an individual, they have that purview right now,” Smalley is quoted as saying, and I have to take exception to the weaseling there: if Smalley wants to discriminate against LGBT people and embolden others to do so, he should at least have the integrity to say it plainly.

Despite fierce criticism from Democratic lawmakers, Smalley persevered with the legislation and the Senate passed the bill minus its LGBT rights protections in a 35-11 vote, which appears to be the version of the legislation that will now move forward and be signed into law. 

What is with these Republicans? Why do they hate us so? All we want is a ride in a taxi, we don’t want to convert them, we just want to go from point A to point B.