FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2020
Kansas Family Voice of Kansas Responds to Human Rights Commission Power Grab
“You’ve shown contempt for Kansans, for their duly elected representatives, and for the law.”
TOPEKA, Kansas – Kansas Family Voice of Kansas – a pro-family ministry – responded to the Kansas Human Rights Commission’s announcement today to specific Kansas legislators that the Commission’s Board determined by administrative fiat to interpret the prohibitions against discrimination based on sex in Kansas nondiscrimination statutes to include “LGBTQ and all derivates of ‘sex.’”
This interpretation of the law forces Kansans to agree to special protections for a person’s sexual behavior rising to the same level as protections based upon race, religion, or national origin. LGBT political groups have long pushed the Kansas legislature to change Kansas nondiscrimination law to this end, including most recently during the 2019-2020 session with H.B. 2130 and S.B. 84.
But Kansans have long rejected this change in their civil rights protections, citing concerns from the fallout of similar changes in other states. For example, forcing business owners to open up single-sex restrooms to people “identifying as the opposite sex” places women and girls in often vulnerable situations. Forcing taxpayers to fund costly “gender transition surgeries” and lifelong maintenance of those alterations has raised red flags nationally and in other states. And, business owners remain concerned that such a change in the law would force them to give up their livelihood or else use their business to support causes or messages that violate their faith.
As other states with similar changes in the law have proven, these concerns are valid.
Since LGBT political activists couldn’t change Kansas law through the legislative process, they’ve usurped the Kansas Human Rights Commission to attempt to do so by administrative fiat.
The Commission cites the recent Bostock v. Clayton County Supreme Court opinion as their rationale for the change. In the Bostock opinion, the Court determined that the word “sex” in Title VII, a federal civil rights law that governs employment situations, includes a person’s self-identifying LGBT status as applied to certain employers.
The Commission’s decision expands the Bostock opinion well beyond its bounds to apply it to Kansas state law and to situations outside of an employment context. They applied the case in ways that the Supreme Court explicitly refused to do.
Brittany Jones, Advocacy Director for Kansas Family Voice of Kansas, condemned the Commission in its attempt to circumvent Kansas law and gross misreading of the Bostock opinion: “You’ve shown contempt for Kansans, for their duly elected representatives, and for the law itself. A power grab by an unelected administrative agency harms all Kansans. No one signed up to live under a dictatorship in the Sunflower state. Kansans retain the power to elect representatives who write law and are held accountable for the laws they make, and Kansas Family Voice of Kansas will work with Kansans every step of the way to take back the power you attempted to steal today.”
The Commission announced that they will begin their new interpretation of Kansas law today, despite not having yet released any official guidance document.
Media Contact:
To interview Ms. Jones, contact Robert Noland, (719) 308-2822, Media@FamilyPolicyAlliance.com
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Kansas Family Voice works to advance biblical citizenship and promote good public policy that protects religious freedom, families, and life.