Oh,
Steve King. You are a royal creep, indeed.
A
longstanding foe of LGBT people and anyone who sees LGBT people as, oh I don't
know, human, King has once again opened his joker of a mouth to say something
incredibly dumb.
Readers
of this column are certainly aware that anti-LGBT discrimination exists in the
workplace. Making this issue even more exciting, in many states, and Michigan
is one of them, firing someone or refusing to hire them based solely on sexual
orientation is totally legal. There is no state law against it, therefore if
you are a victim of such discrimination, you have no legal standing. You cannot
sue. Bummer for you.
Some
people have suggested that a sensible way to approach this issue is to include
sexual orientation and gender identity in state anti-discrimination laws. Oh,
those crazy dreamers.
King
has a better idea: stay in the closet homos.
On
April 4, he told Think Progress, that you can’t tell private business who they
can’t discriminate against. "You have private sector businesses here and
they need to have freedom to operate," he said. In other words, firing
someone because they’re gay would strictly be a business decision. Stop being
so sensitive, gays.
"In
the first place, I would think that unless someone makes their sexuality
public, it’s not anybody’s business, so neither is it our business to tell an
employer who to hire," King continued. "He won’t know who to discriminate
against in the first place."
See,
if people don't know you're gay, they won't discriminate against you. Duh. So
for all of those homos out and proud, if you face discrimination, it's all your
fault. Quit yer cryin'.
This
is hardly a new position for King. In 2010 he said about gays in the workplace,
"If people wear their sexuality on their sleeve and then they want to bring
litigation against someone that they would point their finger at and say, ‘You
discriminate.’" Because protecting companies from being accused of
discrimination is far more important than protecting gays from being
discriminated against.
King
also told Think Progress, "How do you know someone’s sexual orientation? I
don’t know how you discriminate against someone because of their sexual
orientation."
A
good question, just how does one discriminate against someone based on their
sexual orientation? Why, it’s a complete and total mystery! Let’s see if I can
come up with some off the top of my brain. You could refuse to grant them
promotions. You could fire them. You could kick them out of your rental
property. You could bully them until
they drop out of school and/or kill themselves. You could rape them. You could
kill them. The list goes on and on, with plenty of documented evidence should
you want to get totally depressed. But as King pointed out, they all brought it
upon their gay selves.
Things
were better before all this "out and proud" crap. All you have to do is look at
history. Travel back to the time before Stonewall when gays were largely living
in the shadows and nobody ever bothered them and life was great. And it could
have been happily ever after forever if it hadn't been for those meddling kids.
Wait,
did I say meddling kids? My apologies, I was thinking of Scooby Doo. I meant
meddling cops. The cops, who routinely harassed, beat, jailed and otherwise
took advantage of so many sad, closeted queers.
Or,
as King would call it, the good old days.