And so it begins: as David Badash writes, just as the right-to-discriminate bill becomes law in Arkansas (see Max Brantley at Arkansas Times on this),
A Texas Tea Party Republican State Senator has just introduced a bill that copycats Arkansas legislation that is about to become law.
Republican state senator Don Huffines, who ran on a platform of "limited government," wants the Texas legislature to do what Arkansas has just done — to pass a law prohibiting any city or town in the state of Texas from enacting ordinances protecting LGBT citizens from discrimination.
As I just said to friends on Facebook,
Wow—isn't this a shock? Who knew that this legislation in Arkansas, about which national business and political leaders (Bill and Hilary, where are you?) have been totally silent, is meant to be a template for OTHER states to follow? Who could have guessed that was what Tony Perkins meant when he said it was intended as a roadmap for other states?
The passing of this cookie-cutter legislation in Arkansas, and the relative silence with which it has been received in many quarters where one would have expected national leaders to speak out, is not good news. Not for LGBT citizens of states now controlled by tea party governments.
Which is to say, much of the bible belt.