Monday, February 18, 2019

It Is Typical…

The Republican response to high school students is deplorable and hateful.
Group says Wyoming lawmaker compared homosexuality to bestiality, pedophilia
Lynn Hutchings allegedly made the comments in front of a Gay-Straight Alliance student delegation. She claims her remarks were mischaracterized.
NBC News
By Tim Fitzsimons
February 12, 2019

Wyoming Republican state Sen. Lynn Hutchings is facing calls to resign after allegedly making comments earlier this month to a group of high school students comparing homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia.

On Feb. 1, Wyoming Equality, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, arranged to have a Gay-Straight Alliance student group head to the state capital Cheyenne to meet with state legislators. The students intended to tell the lawmakers why they should support HB 230, a state bill that would ban workplace discrimination against LGBTQ people.
The students then asked to talk to their state senator, something that I have done many times and I have been with friends when they talked to their legislators and some of them were Republicans and against the legislation that we wanted to pass.
Hutchings “came out to the gallery to meet the students,” the letter said. “Hutchings said she was unfamiliar with the bill’s language, so the students shared that they wanted her support because the bill would protect the students from workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Then, according to the letter, Hutchings said: “If my sexual orientation was to have sex with all of the men in there and I had sex with all of the women in there and then they brought their children and I had sex with all of them and then brought their dogs in and I had sex with them, should I be protected for my sexual orientation?”
Can you imagine saying that to a group of high school students?

When we talked to our legislators who were against the gender inclusive non-discrimination bill we never got a response like that! Senator Hutchings answer was despicable, disgraceful and demeaning to her office and the Wyoming legislature.

In her own defense she said,
In a statement released Tuesday, Hutchings disputed Wyoming Equality's account of the interaction. "I at no time compared homosexuality with bestiality or pedophilia. That never happened," she wrote.

"I made an attempt to best engage several of them by asking four rhetorical questions," Hutchings said. "My questions to them were intended to highlight the vagueness and subjectivity of the term 'sexual orientation' and how it can be defined in so many ways. After spending more time with them than I expected, we cordially parted company with fist bumps all around.“
If she said "…then they brought their children and I had sex with all of them and then brought their dogs in and I had sex with them, should I be protected for my sexual orientation?” then that sure sounds like she was equating bestiality or pedophilia to lesbians and gays.
The Republican lawmakers promised that their inquiry into the matter would be a “confidential” process.
Yup, if you believe that I have the proverbial bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. What they will look in to is damage control.

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