Right Wing Kookery

The Republican Party is going to have an awful hard time changing its image given some of the laws percolating up through state legislatures.  Take a look at these insane bills in state hoppers near you.  First up, the ever whacky wingers from the state of Idaho. 

Coeur d’Alene Sen. John Goedde, chairman of the Idaho Senate’s Education Committee, introduced legislation Tuesday to require every Idaho high school student to read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and pass a test on it to graduate from high school.

When Sen. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, asked Goedde why he chose that particular book, Goedde said to laughter, “That book made my son a Republican.”

Goedde said he doesn’t plan to press forward with the bill, but it was formally introduced in his committee Tuesday on a voice vote. He said he was sending a message to the State Board of Education, because he’s unhappy with its recent move to repeal a rule requiring two online courses to graduate from high school, and with its decision to back off on another planned rule regarding principal evaluations.

“It was a shot over their bow just to let them know that there’s another way to adopt high school graduation requirements,” Goedde said after the meeting. “I don’t intend to schedule a hearing on it.”

The 1957 novel has been embraced by libertarians and the tea party movement, in part for its opposition to “statism” and embrace of capitalism, as Rand expressed her philosophy of “objectivism,” focusing on “the morality of rational self-interest.” In recent years, the novel has been touted by conservative commentators including Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

So, we got more folks!!  How about this one from one of the states on my list of NEVER would live there EVER.  It’s Tennessee!!

Tennessee bill would prohibit discussion of “non-heterosexual” sexuality in schools and force teachers to warn parents if their kids identify as LGBT.

SB 234, colloquially known as the “ Don’t Say Gay” bill, bars elementary and middle-school teachers from discussing “non-heterosexual” sexuality with their students. Even more shocking, a new version of the bill would require counselors and teachers to warn parents if they think their child is gay.

By way of justification the bill’s sponsor, Republican senator Stacey Campbell, said, “ The act of homosexuality is very dangerous to someone’s health and safety.”

Campbell’s hateful bill is the real threat to health and safety. As Think Progress’ Annie-Rose Strasser notes, “Kids who are LGBT often face alienation, if not outright abandonment, because they come out.  Forty percent of homeless youth are LGBT, and many of them report that the reason they left home was to escape an environment hostile to their sexual orientation.”

It seems that this is the strategy of cultural conservatives: restrict open discussion that could pave the way for a more tolerant generation, and harm children while doing so.

Okee dokee then.  Thought people were just joking about arming first graders after the Newton Shooting?  Not in Missouri.

First-graders would be required to take a gun safety course in school under a measure a Senate committee considered Tuesday that was introduced one day before the massacre at a Connecticut elementary school.

Sen. Dan Brown, R-Rolla, told the Senate General Laws Committee Tuesday that his bill was an effort to teach young children what to do if they come across an unsecured weapon.

Under his bill, the National Rifle Association’s Eddie Eagle Gunsafe Program would be taught be a certified instructor in first grade classrooms across the state. The program is already being used in some schools, but it is not a state requirement.

“I hate mandates as much as anyone, but some concerns and conditions rise to the level of needing a mandate,” Brown said.

Senators watched a brief segment of the training video during the hearing. The segment featured a cartoon eagle telling children to step away from an unsecured gun and immediately report it to an adult.

Remember those days in school when they actually forced you daily to pray, pledge allegiance to the flag, and do all kinds of things contrary to your free speech and thought?  Well, it’s back in Arizona.

Arizona lawmakers  introduced a couple of authoritarian bills that would violate students’ free speech rights and laugh in the face of secularism. The first bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Bob Thorpe, would force all high school seniors to proclaim their loyalty to a 200-year-old document under the blessings of the almighty deity. Under the bill, seniors would be obliged by law to repeat this pledge:

I, _______, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge these duties; So help me God.

A second bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Steve Smith would require all students, K-12, to recite the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance every day. Currently, all public schools are required to set aside time for the pledge, but students can opt out if they prefer.

Arkansas continues to be the state of Fetus Fetishes.  There’s a bevy of laws meant to deny medical science, promote whacked religious views, and just promote your basic woman-hating forced servitude.  Fetus Fetishists continue to try to find a way to redefine “human life” to their religious, misogynistic liking.

In a blow to women’s rights, the Arkansas state senate  approved a bill that would ban abortions when doctors detect a fetal heartbeat. If passed by the House into law, women would be denied abortions as early as five weeks into pregnancy. Arkansas would become  the most anti-choice state in the country.

Not only do Arkansas lawmakers want to strip away a woman’s right to choose—they also want to invade women’s privacy in the process. The bill, sponsored by the  openly racist Republican state senator Jason Rapert, would require doctors administer vaginal probes to detect whether women pass the cut-off of fetal heartbeat.

It gets worse: doctors who perform abortions after the cut-off would face up to six years in prison and $10,000 in fines. Essentially, the bill would jail doctors who adhere to  40 years of federal law.

In a speech to her colleagues, Democratic state senator Linda Chesterfield captured the cruelty of the proposed legislation: “I don’t want to go back to when women used kerosene and clotheshangers because they didn’t have a choice.”

It’s hard to see how any of this leads to “smaller” government and less government interference in our lives, isn’t it? Unnecessary and insane Government Regulation any one?  And just think, I haven’t even included examples from Kansas or Louisiana yet!!!