On May 14, Alaska lawmakers heard public testimony on a proposed bill that aims to establish new “rights” for those who claim to have any number of LGBTQ identities.
House Bill 301, which has languished in the House State Affairs Committee for most of the current legislative session, is strongly backed by Planned Parenthood and other LGBTQ activists who coordinated their followers to flood the meeting with testimony, demanding that “sexual orientation or gender identity/expression” be deemed as new protected legal classifications, akin to race, sex, age and religion.
Introduced earlier this year, the bill will likely not pass the Legislature this year, but it will remain active through next year’s session, when lawmakers can try to advance it.
If passed, the bill would modify statutes related to public accommodations, rental facilities, employment and housing. Similar bills across the nation have forced business owners to create art, cakes and engage in photo shoots that violate their deeply held religious and moral convictions. Other such laws have forced faith-based groups and churches to provide services, such as renting venues for homosexual weddings or adhering to so-called “gender-identity” policies related to dress, pronouns, bathroom usage and other practices which contradict traditional morality.
Sponsors who are pushing the bill include hard left Democrat Representatives Alyse Galvin (Anchorage), Sara Hannan (Juneau), Andi Story (Juneau), Genevieve Mina (Anchorage), Carolyn Hall (Anchorage) and Ashley Carrick (Fairbanks).
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
Critics, however, have long argued that LGBTQ identities are fundamentally different from race and other protected categories and thus should not be included among those classifications.
“First, race manifests itself readily, whereas sexual orientation and gender identity are ambiguous, subjective, and variable traits,” the Heritage Foundation has argued. “Second, sexual orientation and gender identity are linked to actions, which are a proper subject matter for moral evaluation. Race is not.”
In 2023, similar legislation was introduced in the Alaska Legislature, which drew sharp criticism when the sponsor refused to say whether the bill would permit biological males to enter women’s shower rooms and allow them to undress in front of girls
The latest bill would make it unlawful to treat people differently based on their sexual identities, meaning bathroom policies, wedding venue rentals, youth camps and many other entities could be forced to affirm and facilitate gender confusion.
With regard to churches that rent their facilities for weddings or other functions, House Bill 301 could force them to host same-sex weddings and other gender-confused events. That’s because Alaska’s public accommodations law does not currently provide specific exemptions for religious organizations or churches in this context.
20 Comments
They have no idea the amount of pushback they are going to receive if they pass such legislation. Most churches, bible camps, schools will not comply.
Amen Steve , yes we will not comply.
These rainbow people have all the same right as others.
You just don’t get to go into the girls bathroom if you’re a boy. You don’t get your own cry room, it’s goes on and on.
If you want to be a rainbow individual fine. Just live your life as a normal person and we will get along fine, living next-door to one another.
Churches, bible camps, and religious schools have never been forced to accommodate people they don’t want to, even in states where LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination. Churches have never been forcced to provide weddings for same-sex couples.
And what about the bathrooms inside churches?
Thank you for keeping the public informed on this latest attack on any Alaskan who chooses truth over political correctness. Attacks against conscience are particularly pernicious in that they are designed to detach us from reality so that a new government-sanctioned ‘reality’ can take its place. The cost is no less than the loss of our ability as a society to protect innocence, with countless examples of what that means to the vulnerable. The erosion of moral courage will turn mice out of men (and women) and must be steadfastly opposed at every opportunity. Protect innocence. When we lose the legal ability to protect the young, the weak, and the vulnerable we lose far more than a political battle.
Thank you for the information. I encourage my fellow Alaskans to contact the House State Affairs committee.
Bigots hiding behind a false Christianity need to lose this battle resoundingly.
I am actually starting to like the trans movement. It shows those nasty feminists that men are better at everything including being women. It also allows men to destroy the gender pay gap narrative. Can’t accuse a man of getting paid more than women when the men can just identify as women and victims of bigoted oppression.
Hell, I can reap all those sweet benefits simply by identifying as a lesser species.
Not only that, but with all the weirdos around taking all the attention, I am able to continue to work in the shadows.
All hail the Broken Rainbow Brigade!
God is good.
Men hiding in women’s bathrooms need to lose this battle resoundingly.
nothing bigoted about recognizing mental illness.
Christian lithic mythology should remain in churches and bedside prayers.
Just as sexual interactions and “identities” should be in private and not be a public spectacle that gets a whole month of attention a year.
I don’t like it when the religious push their false gods on me and I like it even less when the godless push their depravity on me. You all need to put the pendulum back in the center and resolve your differences because this whole culture war you are all participating in is affecting the rest of us who just want to live in peace and be left alone to pursue our own happiness. Give us our rainbow back from your sexualized hands and get back in the closet with your private affairs. It is not our responsibility to make you feel seen and accepted. That is your mirrors job. It is up to YOU to accept yourself, not us!
why do you assume I’m gay?
What happens when invertebrates face opposition?
Thanks for the information and for the information on steps to take action on this. I called in and was one of three who voices opposition to this bill. Unfortunately, all the rest were in favor. There were probably 25 or so callers. We need to be better organized. Thanks for speaking the word.
Everyone should have rights…..just because they are different than you doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be there.
A homosexual man should have the same rights as I do. Neither of us have a right to be in the girls’ bathroom. Women also have rights, including the right to use a locker room without naked men in it.
We had short notice on this bill HB 301. There was no chance to respond. The Civil Rights act passed several years ago has been corrupted to include many more groups than intended when it was originally passed. The gender wars are just another way to validate an atheistic lifestyle which is another worldview than this nation was founded on We have always been a Christian nation with ministers creating the Ivy League universities to pass on the hope we have through Jesus Christ’s death and rising from the dead which gives us the hope of heaven. The gender issue (a mental illness) is not the same as the prejudice being based on “Melanin (skin color), the original purpose of the Civil Rights Act.”
VETO HB 301 which misuses the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was meant to prevent discrimination based on skin color (Melanen). This bill has been corrupted to be used by group rights groups vs. individual rights. Sexual orientation is a lifestyle that does not need protection. by the Civil Rights Act. Passing this has a serious number of problems by forcing all of us to pretend that a mental illness is normal and needs to be enforced in every aspect of our lives. Conversion Therapy cures this. This gender confusion validates a false teaching within an atheistic worldview not a Biblical Worldview. Our Country including Alaska was founded by ministers who planned and built the Ivy League schools for the purpose of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all generations. America was not founded due to slavery which is a lie taught in the 1619 Project used in the government schools. VETO this messy bill.
You want the rest of us to pretend that your religious beliefs, which include talking snakes, a virgin birth and dead people coming back to life is normal when, in fact, it is a mental illness.