this nonsense as hard as we can. Unfortunately, my district's state senator is one of the primary sponsors and she makes Bachmann and Palin look like Sanders supporters. I haven't been able to get away from her even after moving several years ago, because she just switched from being a state rep to a senator after her state rep term limits were up and state senate districts are much larger. She's the one who made national news last year by making public jokes about Muslims and wanting them all out of the state.
The legislature has been obsessed with school bathrooms and children's genitals this session. They've also been obsessed with "protecting conservative views". This means that another crazy law that would allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people, unmarried couples and unmarried pregnant women and single mothers for any goddamned "religious" reason they want is not only wending its way through the legislature but has picked up enough support that it will likely also pass this session. Never mind that it's completely unconstitutional, they don't give a shit. They'll take tons of federal money that we can't survive as a state without, but they'll scream about state's rights and being self-sufficient and not needing no stinking fedrul' gubmint anyway. Of course, tell the conservative ranchers and farmers who suck up tons of federal subsidies that, but oh, it's not the same thing to them, they "deserve" such subsidies while others don't.
And how the hell are they going to "enforce" this law? Order schools to appoint a genital police force to check each child and teen as they enter bathrooms, like that nutball in Virginia proposed in his law? That will NOT go over well in this state even among many conservatives. The schools are in bad shape financially and our teachers the lowest-paid in the nation thanks to the legislature and its refusal to address any funding or financial issues for years, yet this is the education "issue" they focus on?
The problem is that there's been a fight for the soul of the state's republican party for the past fifteen years or so, when church-sponsored candidates started winning legislative races and fighting with the more reasonable party wing who saw the danger of these people to the state and to their party. The wackos have been gaining the upper hand in the legislature, while the state as a whole has actually voted down many of the crazy shit that they've passed once they've been put to a referendum. The nuts hate the governor, who's seen as a 'liberal", when he's anything but. but he's actually not too bad as republicans go and he's from the more moderate, reasonable wing (fortunately, I don't think anyone from that nutball wing would actually win statewide as governor and when statewide office holders starting acting like teabilly nutballs, they're quickly shut down by the party or voted out of office, for the most part. And that is also why the statewide abortion ban that was passed twice was defeated twice in referendums. So it's really just some of the rural areas in certain parts of the state and Rapid City, the reddest part of this very red state, that are causing all the damned trouble, but the party can't seem to get rid of them and their influence during legislative sessions.
Meanwhile, we have many problems in this state that urgently need addressing, but we can't get the goddamned legislature to think about anything but these bigoted, cruel, hateful ways to screw around with people's lives. The governor has proposed a very workable, reasonable, solid, intelligent plan for increasing school funding and teacher pay that would actually greatly lower property taxes (which is what people are screaming about in this state, since we don't have a state income tax), but he can't get the goddamned legislature to consider it or support it. No, they're more interested in shoving theocratic bullshit down our throats.
Who needs to worry about Sharia Law coming here (as many ignorant idiots in this state yammer about) when we have these assholes pushing and enacting these laws? And how many LGBT kids are going to complete or attempt suicide over it?
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