Missouri: Senator proposes discriminatory Arizona-like bill

Measure aims to ‘protect Missourians from attacks on their religious freedom’

A Missouri state senator has introduced a bill that, like a similar Arizona measure, aims to grant businesses the right to refuse service based on religious beliefs, The Kansas City Star reports.

Wayne Wallingford says he proposed the bill to “protect Missourians from attacks on their religious freedom.”

While Senate Bill 916 does not mention the words “gay” or “sexual orientation,” gay rights advocates suspect that the legislation would primarily target gays and lesbians for discrimination, KSHB Kansas City says in its report.

Equality Missouri campaigns director Caleb-Michael Files suggests the characterization of the bill as a religious-freedoms measure is misleading. “It would be discrimination based on, you know, x, y and z. I think that that’s the way you frame it.”

Other political observers say there is probably little appetite for such legislation, with Governor Jay Nixon likely to veto it if it made it through the legislature.

Similar legislation stalled in the Kansas Senate, while Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is under mounting pressure to veto a religous-freedoms measure that state legislators recently green-lighted.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

Keep Reading

The new generation of gay Conservative sellouts

OPINION: Melissa Lantsman’s and Eric Duncan’s refusals to call out their party’s transphobia is a betrayal of the LGBTQ2S+ community

Over 300 anti-LGBTQ2S+ bills have been introduced this year. This doesn’t mean we should panic

OPINION: While it’s important to watch out for threats, not all threats are created equally. Some of these bills will die a natural death

Xtra’s top LGBTQ2S+ stories of the year

The best and brightest—even most bewildering—stories from a back catalogue brimming with insight

Elon Musk and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton are suing Media Matters. Here’s why queer and trans people should care

OPINION: When politicians and the rich leverage the power of the state to quell dissent, we all lose