Is Brownback really that homophobic?

Editorial from The Salina Journal

In Tuesday's Salina Journal, reporter Erin Mathews had a story about a local gay couple who, after twice being denied, were granted a marriage license from Saline County District Court.

In Wednesday's edition, we carried the story about how Gov. Sam Brownback rescinded an executive order issued in 2007 by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius that granted job protection to state employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Progress, and then ... reality. We're still in Kansas.

It's easy to be angry and discouraged by people such as Brownback. Don't be. He and his kind soon will be as politically irrelevant as they are morally repugnant. The world is changing, and they're being left behind.

But why would Brownback do this now, when he could have done it at any time in his first four years in office? There are a number of reasons.

The main reason might be that the governor needs a distraction. In an attempt to capture national attention for another presidential run, he foolishly cut income taxes and left the state's budget hundreds of millions of dollars in the red. Beating up gays in Kansas has been a good way to score points with voters, and Brownback needs those points.

But rescinding those protections goes beyond a phony politician beating up on a disenfranchised group of people. Perhaps it's just that he's cruel, shortsighted and homophobic.

As the rest of the nation becomes more tolerant and accepting, as court after court rules in favor of gay marriage, as gays now are issued marriage licenses even in Saline County, Brownback is attempting to drag Kansas back into an era when it was acceptable to hate and ostracize someone just for the way they were born.

Brownback will fail at this, as he has at most every other thing he's done since he returned to our state from Washington. We're still in Kansas, but as we saw with that marriage license being granted in Saline County, even Kansas is changing.

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The Gayly – February 17, 2015 @ 1:20pm.