To keep or discard the sex crime clause

Candelora, who voted in favor of the bill, said opposition from his caucus largely stemmed from concern over potential overreach from the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities and its effects on business owners.

Pedophilia did not enter the dialogue until after HB 6638 passed the House when the Family Institute of Connecticut listed the legislation in a “Bad Batch of Bills” blog post. As evidence that the bill intends to shield pedophiles from discrimination, the organization pointed to the fact that HB 6638’s sexual orientation terminology drops language found in the current definition that specifically excludes sex crime behavior from protection.

According to the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, Connecticut is one of eight states that still has language “explicitly excluding behavior that is already criminal under statute from the definition of ‘sexual orientation.’ ” CHRO supports the removal of that language, which they said “plays into longstanding erroneous and offensive stereotypes connecting homosexuality and bisexuality to criminal behavior.”

Rep. Jeff Currey, who is a co-sponsor of HB 6638 and is gay, said that the new sexual orientation definition’s specific reference to gender negates the need for an explicit exclusion of sex crimes, which are already illegal under state law.

“While this new definition does remove the reference to the criminal statutes, it adds in this specific reference to gender, which doesn’t actually exist in the current definition, to make things crystal clear,” Currey said in a statement to the Courant. “In order to be provided with any protection from discrimination under this language, an individual’s sexual orientation would need to be defined in terms of gender attraction. Attraction to plants, as noted by the ranking member during the committee meeting, or minors would absolutely not be protected because neither ‘attraction’ has anything to do with gender.”

Kelly believes that the new definition is not an adequate safeguard. He said he is advocating for a version of the sex crime conduct clause to appear in a different section of the statutes.

“When you look at statutory construction, any attorney worth his salt is going to say that when the legislature acts, it knows what it’s doing. And when the legislature adopts a law because we know what we’re doing, that new law has import. So if we’re changing that statute and leaving something off, that’s meaningful and could be open to interpretation, either by an attorney or by a court, that that conduct was meant to no longer be untoward,” Kelly said. “(HB 6638) does not have the conduct aspect of it included in the definition, which I think is the appropriate way to have this. … I think they’re two different things. And so what needs to happen is that this conduct clause needs to be put in the statutes where conduct is what is evaluated.”

HB 6638 co-sponsor Rep. Dominique Johnson said that at no time during the committee or floor debates did any member of the legislature or public raise concerns that the bill could somehow condone pedophilia.

“The lawyer that testified in the Judiciary Committee hearing never suggested that this was a loophole, (or) that this was a legal problem,” Johnson said. “I would be hopeful that the senators, who are buying into the argument that is being put out into the ether on social media, use our nonpartisan policy and legal experts to make their own determination.”

Johnson said she fears that the misinformation surrounding HB 6638 is an attempt to “take the oxygen out of the room” and “create a moral panic.”

Johnson said she is open to discussing possible revisions with Senate colleagues but she added that the current language in HB 6638 is in line with legislation from several other states.

“I think that’s the direction where we’re going as a society because we understand there’s a history to associating our community with criminality that has been used against us as an argument of why we shouldn’t be part of the American fabric,” said Johnson, who is LGBT. “This is just the same song.”