Oklahoma ranks last on equality issues

Gay and lesbian activists again have pointed to the Sooner State as the most hostile to their civil liberties.

This week, Freedom Oklahoma and the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., announced that of more than 50 so-called discriminatory bills under proposal nationwide, Oklahoma leads the country, with lawmakers floating at least eight laws that harm the rights of LGBTQ people.

Lawmakers convene Feb. 6 for the new legislative session.

During a news conference Monday at the state Capitol, Troy Stevenson, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, welcomed a date in court should the bills pass. He reminded legislators of the economic boycott of North Carolina, after Tar Heel legislators last year passed House Bill 2, requiring transgender people in government buildings to use restrooms that align with the gender listed on their birth certificates.

“We’ve got failing schools, crumbling streets and bridges, mental health crises throughout the state, and our prisons are overflowing because of those education crises and because of those mental health crises,” Stevenson said. “And yet we’ve got legislators that would rather distract from the actual issues facing Oklahomans to grandstand on issues that do nothing but cause greater economic failure for the state.”

This marks the second consecutive year LGBTQ advocacy groups have criticized Oklahoma as having proposed the most anti-equality legislation. In 2016, the Sooner State proposed at least 26 such bills, according to HRC.

Activists accused three Oklahoma legislators of forming “a small cabal of bias under the dome at the Oklahoma state Capitol.”

The lawmakers are state Sen. Joseph Silk, R-Broken Bow; state Sen. Josh Brecheen, R-Coalgate; and Rep. Chuck Strohm, R-Jenks.

A sampling of proposed laws

Silk has proposed Senate Bill 197, the Oklahoma Right of Conscience Act. The legislation would allow people to invoke religious convictions and conscience in refusing to provide services for a marriage ceremony, or celebration of a specific lifestyle or behavior.

“It’s kind of comical to me that the LGBTQ community paints this target on themselves that I’m trying to attack them,” Silk said. “What the bill says is people have the right to not participate in marriage, lifestyles or behaviors they don’t agree with.”

Silk said the bill is not a license to discriminate. However, he said, people don’t have the right to compel others, including business owners, to participate in their lifestyles. As an example, a minister shouldn’t be forced to officiate a wedding between a person and a tree, he said. A Muslim caterer should have the right to refuse service at a Christian church, if such an action violates their religious beliefs, Silk said.

“If you have a small catering business and you have some group that has a drunken orgy, you have the right to say, ‘I don’t believe in that lifestyle or behavior, and I don’t have to participate in that,’ ” he said.

Brecheen authored Senate Joint Resolution 36, another proposal under fire from LGBTQ activists. The proposed resolution says “gender is established at fertilization,” and cites the American College of Pediatricians, which “urges health professionals, educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex as normal and healthful.”

The American College of Pediatricians has been branded an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Brecheen’s resolution also cites the 10th Amendment, and says “Based on the findings in this resolution, all regulations imposed by the United States Department of Education concerning transgender education or procedures are void in Oklahoma.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights enforces Title IX, created in 1972 to protect people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal dollars.

Strohm has proposed legislation including HB 1508, the Student and Teacher Bill of Rights Act. In part, the law allows school authorities to “impose rules of order and pedagogical restrictions on student activities,” but officials “may not discriminate against student prayer or religious speech in applying such rules and restrictions.”

Under the proposed law, students may express their religious beliefs in homework, artwork, and assignments, free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions.

Neither Strohm nor Brecheen returned telephone messages to their offices seeking comment.

Cathryn Oakley, senior legislative counsel for HRC, said such bills are introduced by politicians looking to score points with their voting base, without regard to addressing real problems.

“It’s really about the simple dislike of a group of people,” she said.

Rights of religion and LGBTQ rights do not have to be at odds, Oakley said.

“I think they’re trying to hide the ball a bit,” she said. “If you talk about students and teachers having a bill of rights, that’s something everybody gets behind. In terms of religion in public schools, this is a much larger issue ... this is about talking about public spaces and what kind of religious spaces we are willing to have happen.”

During the news conference Monday, the Rev. Lori Allen Walke of Mayflower Congregational Church of Oklahoma City, a United Church of Christ fellowship, invoked Scripture to criticize the bills.

“Anti-LGBTQ legislation couched in phrases like ‘religious freedom’ and ‘right of conscience’ are a waste of time and money, not to mention deeply offensive to LGBTQ people made in the image of God, as well as deeply offensive to the people who love them,” Walke said.

Women’s rights also a topic

Rep. Emily Virgin, D-Norman, spoke at the Monday news conference, which also addressed women’s rights issues.

Virgin criticized HB 1441, a law proposed by Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, that would prohibit abortion without the consent of the father; require a pregnant woman seeking an abortion to provide the identity of the father; allow the identified father to demand a paternity test.

Exceptions include cases of rape, incest or if the mother’s life is at risk.

Virgin said the group of bills, and similar ones floated in the past, have brought the Sooner State “national embarrassing attention,” and “marginalized a large portion of Oklahomans.”

Humphrey said he wants to be a voice for father’s rights.

“What we’re saying is, if a man is responsible for child support, and they are, what I say is their responsibility begins at conception, not nine months down the road,” Humphrey said. “I understand these groups that feel it should be 100 percent a woman’s choice. I would encourage women to make that choice before they get pregnant, but once they enter into a relationship with a person, as she becomes pregnant, then that embryo, egg, fetus, whatever you want to call it, has mutual DNA, and both parties should have a say-so.”

Chances of passing

As to whether such bills have a chance to pass, Oakley said the volume of proposed legislation, combined with the state of U.S. politics, could make it possible.

“There’s always a risk,” she said. “We’re looking at a political climate that’s different than it was last year, both in Oklahoma and nationally.”

Stevenson, the executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, said the bills do harm, even if they don’t pass, because leadership in both political parties “pacify the most extreme elements in the legislative process by allowing these bills” to go forward without any vocal opposition.

He called on the lawmakers to withdraw the bills before the session starts.