Alabama Again Embraces Ignorance and Anti-LGBT Bigotry

As I have noted numerous times over the life of this blog, the Alabama I knew of the late 1970's and early 1980's has disappeared and in its place - thanks, in my view due to the rise of the Christofascists and evangelicals in the Alabama Republican Party.  If he were still living, I doubt George Wallace could get elected since he would not be sufficiently extreme to satisfy the Alabama GOP party base.  Instead the state GOP is lead by Gov. Kay Ivey who, in my view, barely has the brains to come in out of the rain and seems hell bent on making Alabama a pariah state for progressive and inovative business by signing horrific anti-LGBT legislation into law that criminalizes gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth and includes its own "don't say gay" provisions.   Ivey's statements underscore that she rejects medical and scientific knowledge and is a know nothing, knuckle dragging Neanderthal (no insult intended to Neanderthals)bans.   A piece at Al.com quotes Ivey's ignorant statements:

Gov. Kay Ivey on Friday signed a pair of controversial anti-LGBT bills into law, a day after the state Legislature passed the legislation along party lines on the last day of the legislative session.

Ivey signed SB184, or the Alabama Vulnerable Child Protection Act, which criminalizes gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth.

“There are very real challenges facing our young people, especially with today’s societal pressures and modern culture. I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl,” the governor said in a statement after signing both bills. “We should especially protect our children from these radical, life-altering drugs and surgeries when they are at such a vulnerable stage in life. Instead, let us all focus on helping them to properly develop into the adults God intended them to be.”

The governor also signed HB322, dubbed by opponents as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, because an amendment is modeled after Florida legislation banning the teaching of “divisive concepts” in schools. . . . “Here in Alabama, men use the men’s room, and ladies use the ladies’ room – it’s really a no brainer,” Ivey said.

Given Alabama's history, it is safe to say "divsive concepts" includes any honest discussion of slavery and the Jim Crow laws and civil rights movement.  Sadly, Ivey's simple mind cannot grasp that god - if there is one - made gay and trans people too.   An opinion piece also at Al.com expresses my reaction to this gratuitous bigotry by Alabama's whore like Republican legistors:

There are decent people in Alabama. I know this because I’ve grown up around them. I hang out with them. Work with them. I’ve gone to church with them, and before I became a parent, I drank a lot of beer with them. I see them every day.

There are a few, even, in the Alabama Legislature.  But now, I worry. I worry whether the decency I’ve seen can counterbalance the meanness.  The meanness of the majority of our lawmakers.

It was meanness Thursday in Montgomery, cruelty toward folks who don’t deserve it. Cruelty toward children. Bullying from grown men and grown women to score political points, to pacify constituents whipped up into a frenzy by talk radio jerks and cable TV hatemongers.

[O]n the last day of the 2022 session, Republican lawmakers channeled their meanness at trans kids and LGBTQ youth.

Already two anti-trans bills had inched their way through the legislative maze. It was an easy place to put the hate that needed a place to go.

The first bill, from Rep. Scott Stadthagen, R-Hartselle, would force trans students to use the bathrooms of their gender at birth — a so-called “bathroom bill.”

The second bill, from Rep. Wes Allen, R-Troy (whose dad is the one who killed the Edmund Pettus Bridge renaming) would make it a crime for doctors to treat trans youth with hormones, puberty blockers or surgery.

But that wasn’t enough for Alabama lawmakers. . . . An amendment from Sen. Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, expanded the bill to prohibit elementary teachers from talking about sexuality or gender in school.

These lawmakers — and let’s be clear, we’re talking about the Republicans — have little regard for the kids they want to legislate back into the closet. Heck, they don’t give a rip for their queer colleagues in the Legislature.

Allen’s contempt for Rafferty, the only openly gay Alabama lawmaker, was clear.

Rafferty turned his attention to the rest of the chamber and pleaded with them to kill the bill.

“It’s hard enough growing up being different,” Rafferty said. “It’s even harder growing up being different and then have a state legislature — your elected officials, the leaders of this state — put a target on children’s backs.”