Welcome to the Thursday edition of your semi-daily open thread. Use this thread to talk about whatever’s on your mind. Remember, nothing is off-topic!
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is one of our most wingnutty members of Congress. He has a brilliant idea on how to end anti-LGBT discrimination:
But King said he knows how to resolve the problem of workplace discrimination without passing new legal protections.
King then told a story about his days in the Iowa Senate, when gay activists came to lobby a fellow Republican lawmaker, state Sen. Jerry Behn of Boone, for protected status for sexual orientation and gender identity.
He said, “Let me ask you a question. Am I heterosexual or homosexual?” And they looked him up and down — and actually they should have known — but they said “We don’t know.” And he said “Exactly my point. If you don’t project it, if you don’t advertise it, how would anyone know to discriminate against you?” And that’s at the basis of this.
I love this part: Am I heterosexual or homosexual?” And they looked him up and down — and actually they should have known — but they said “We don’t know.” We should simultaneously know and not know King’s sexual orientation just by looking at him. I suppose King could be suggesting that the following things be outlawed at work instead: the wearing of wedding rings, pictures of your family at your desk and watercooler talk about your family.
“I am immediately resigning my membership in NARTH to allow myself the time necessary to fight the false media reports that have been made against me,” he said in a statement. “With the assistance of a defamation attorney, I will fight these false reports because I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever. I am not gay and never have been.”
Sure, because hiring male escorts to carry luggage and give nude massages to your genitals is normal heterosexual behavior. We should be ashamed of ourselves for thinking otherwise.