Missouri Catholic Conference Archives

Both sides on sexual orientation bill pack Missouri Capitol hearing room to testify

May 9, 2019 By Brian Hauswirth

Legislation adding sexual orientation and gender identity to Missouri’s Human Rights statute was heard Wednesday afternoon by a House committee in Jefferson City. The House General Laws Committee heard about 90 minutes of testimony, before a standing-room only audience.

State Reps. Greg Razer, D-Kansas City, (at right) and Tom Hannegan, R-St. Charles, testify before the Missouri House General Laws Committee on May 8, 2019 in Jefferson City (photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)

State Rep. Greg Razer, D-Kansas City, who is gay, is the bill sponsor. Razer testifies it is not illegal in Missouri or nationally to fire someone for being LGBT.

“It is perfectly fine (under current law) to fire someone from their job, evict them from their home or deny them service say, at a restaurant, simply because you know they are or think they might be LGBT,” Razer says.

Razer says people can lose their homes and their jobs because they are gay or lesbian.

He emphasizes the bill is not special treatment for LGBT people, adding this is the 21st straight year the bill has been filed.

Razer and State Rep. Tom Hannegan, R-St. Charles, have filed the same bill. Hannegan, who is also gay, testifies this is about constitutional rights and about people being equal.

Razer’s House Bill 208 would prohibit discrimination based upon a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Several religious organizations testified against the bill on Wednesday.

Grandview-based Desert Stream Ministries community outreach coordinator Amanda Smith testified against the bill, saying she identified as a lesbian 12 years ago and dated women. Smith is worried about what will happen next, if the bill passes.

State Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis, who supports the bill, questioned Smith at the hearing.

“Do you think at that time in your life (12 years ago) while you were going through that period that it would have been okay for a landlord to deny you an apartment because they didn’t like that you identified as male?,” Merideth asked Smith.

“No,” Smith replied.

The Jefferson City-based Missouri Catholic Conference also testified against Razer’s legislation. Catholic Conference executive director Tyler McClay cites religious liberty concerns.

“The concern is regarding faith-based organizations that provide foster care and adoption care services in other states where this law has been passed, they have been shut out of government contracts,” McClay testifies.

The Missouri Baptist Convention also testified against the bill.

Missouri’s oldest business association also testified against the Razer-Hannegan legislation. Associated Industries of Missouri (AIM) President Ray McCarty testifies that creating a new cause of action for sexual orientation and gender identity is troublesome.

“According to the American Psychological Association, sexual orientation really involves your emotional attraction to another person, which is different than other types of protection,” says McCarty.

McCarty also says Missouri lawmakers should wait until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on three cases, cases he says could establish whether existing federal protection against sex discrimination applies to alleged discrimination because of sexual orientation and gender identity.

But Razer says the time to act is now, adding this is not a special law and that this is not a new law.

The St. Louis Regional Chamber and some other business representatives testified for the bill, saying it’s the right thing to do and will also improve the economy. A representative from Monsanto also testified for Razer’s bill.

The House General Laws Committee did not vote on the bill Wednesday, and is not expected to meet again until next week.

The 2019 legislative session ends on May 17. Razer says lawmakers can pass the bill before session ends.

Hearing on ‘benevolent’ tax credits becomes abortion, birth control debate

January 23, 2013 By Mike Lear

A hearing in the House Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities on a proposal to extend so-called “benevolent” tax credits turned into a discussion about abortion and birth control on Tuesday.

Representative Genise Montecillo at a hearing of the House Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities. (Photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications.)

The hearing was on a bill that would extend tax credits for donations to charitable causes, such as centers that help children in crisis, food banks and more. The debate regarded credits for pregnancy resource centers.

Pro-Choice Missouri Executive Director Pamela Sumners testified that a study revealed many of those centers giving inaccurate medical information regarding abortions and birth control.

“We know that what happens with some of these facilities is that you don’t get the proper information early on, there are delays and sometimes these delays will put people beyond the point at which they can legally get an abortion or put them in a position where the procedure will be more risky to them,” she says.

Sumners discussed some of the findings of that study.

“Sixty-nine percent of these facilities said that there was a link between abortion and hormonal birth control increasing infertility,” she says. “Ninety-two percent wouldn’t tell a woman where she could obtain birth control. Fifty-four percent stated or implied that condoms are less effective in preventing sexually transmitted diseases than they are. Twenty-eight percent told women in their written materials that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer.”

Sumners told lawmakers she wanted them to have the facts before they extended the credit benefitting those centers.

Missouri Catholic Conference spokesman Tyler McClay questioned the definition of what is “medically accurate.”

“I can show you studies that suggest that (abortion is a risk factor for breast cancer),” McClay says. “I can show you studies that say it is not a risk factor. So, I guess the question is, ‘What’s medically accurate?’ That’s going to be difficult to define, I think, in law. That would be my concern with that.”

Rep. Genise Montecillo (D-St. Louis) indicated she will offer an amendment to the bill to require that medical information provided by clinics be accurate.

See the legislation — HB 87.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Springfield) says the hearing on his bill about charitable tax credits was hijacked.

“That’s unfortunate because we’re trying to just accomplish something that is very good,” Burlison says. “There’s a lot of good that’s happened in all these benevolent tax credits.”

Barbara Brown-Johnson, president of the Missouri Network of Child Advocacy Centers, testified to urge lawmakers to extend the “children in crisis” credit. She says at her center in Springfield, it yielded $534,000 in four years and over $240,000 in July and August, 2012 alone.

She says one thing it supports is forensic interviewers who interview children going through stressful situations.

“This little boy asked a different kind of question that we’d never been asked before,” Brown-Johnson says. “He looked at the interviewer and he said … he was eight … he said … ‘Yeah, I have a question.’ He said, ‘Can you tell me why people keep hurting me?’ That’s a question no child in Missouri or any state should ever have to ask.”

The legislation will come to a vote in the committee next week.