ISBL Asshat of the Week: Nebraska GOP State Senator Bill Kintner

Some folks get on an anti-LGBT tear and there’s just no stopping ‘em …

Days after voting to kill a proposal to protect LGBT individuals from discrimination in Nebraska, Republican … of course … state Senator Bill Kintner took to the radio to explain that gays don’t deserve protected class status because … “men in dresses.”

Oh, but he did. Kintner argued that there are no problems with discrimination in Nebraska and that the US Constitution allows people to violate gay individuals’ civil rights, and that businesses should be able to “make it known” if they don’t want to serve LGBT people by providing them with bad service.

Oh, but he did. And then he dared Nebraskans to vote him out of office if they don’t like his positions on LGBT equality:

“When there’s a majority of people in our state that thinks [LBGT rights are an] important issue, and thinks that they want representation to do that, it’ll happen. There were 40,000 people who elected me to represent them … they sent me down here to do this job.”

To hate; to legislate hate; and, well, to be a dick. Of course, Kintner’s comments are coming at a time when states everywhere are passing, or trying to pass, so-called “religious discrimination” laws that allow people to discriminate against LGBT Americans because the Baby Jeebus said so, though where in the Bible that speech occurs, I have no idea.

And Bill Kintner is the worst of a large, sad, pathetic, hate-filled bunch because he says LGBT individuals don’t deserve a protected class status and then explained it like this:

“So if you get an employee who is habitually late — he’s just not a very good employee — and you sit him down and say ‘Joe, you’re late too often, you don’t get your work done on time, you’re not doing the job right, you’ve gotta straighten up or we’re going to replace you. And he says, ‘You know, I feel like a woman today. Now we’ve got a whole problem if you’re trying to get rid of him.”

Oh, but he did. And when he was confronted with his stupidity by radio host Matt Tompkins, who reminded Bill Kintner that transgender people don’t choose their gender identity, Kintner said:

“Let’s think about Bruce Jenner. Because he wears a dress, does that make him a woman? Of course it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t.”

First off, dick, her name is Caitlyn, and maybe you should educate yourself about gender identity before you flap your lips again … like that’ll happen.

Tomkins then reminded elected official Kintner that the First Amendment doesn’t grant anyone the right to discriminate against other people and violate their civil rights, something the Constitution also protects, and Kintner said that it does: discrimination is in the Constitution:

“Well, if you have a restaurant, and they’re not overtly discriminating but, you know, they’re kind of making it known that you know, we don’t like men sitting around in dresses, you now, that stuff takes care of itself. Word will get out that this place doesn’t serve everyone. It doesn’t give everyone equal treatment. If you’re a man wearing a dress it takes you an hour to get waited on, and for everyone else it takes 20 minutes … that’s called bad service.”

It’s called discrimination, and when we pass laws against Asshattery, and how Asshats should not be treated equally, I will be standing at the front of that protest line arguing that, while I don’t necessarily agree with asshats, and I don’t really understand asshats, asshats are people, too. And they deserve to be treated equally and hopefully reeducated so they stop saying stupid things … even though that is their right.

I’d still call them out on being an asshat, but, hey, no one’s perfect.

Bill Kintner, the ISBL Asshat of the Week.

Think Progress