Last week I mentioned that, like Tennessee, Missouri also has a disgusting "don't say gay" bill which is advancing in the state legislature. The discussion around the bill is equally despicable:
The HuffPo reports:
House Small Business Committee Chairman Dwight Scharnhorst (R-St. Louis), a co-sponsor, said he believes sexual orientation issues should be taught by parents, clergy and physicians. Parents have been passing along responsibility for children to the public schools, partly because of the writings of the late pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, Scharnhorst said.
Scharnhorst told HuffPost that teaching about LGBT issues would lead to other discussions. "There is no need to talk about Billy wanting to marry a goat," he said.
State Rep. Stephen Webber (D-Columbia), a leading opponent of the bill, said he is not surprised by its introduction because Missouri Republicans have been wanting to limit discussion of LGBT issues. Webber pointed to the defeat of his bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation for the past several years. He said that while some Republicans have privately expressed support for the bill, political concerns prevent them from voting for it.
(via think progress)
