Kansas Republican Promises To Pass Anti-Gay Marriage ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill
A veteran Kansas state lawmaker is promising to bring back a bill that would discriminate against gay people under the guise of “religious freedom.”
The “Protecting religious freedom regarding marriage” bill, also known as the “religious freedom bill,” passed in the Kansas House in February by a strong margin, 72-49. It died in the Senate. But now, Rep. Steve Brunk is promising to bring it back and pass it.
“This is an ongoing conversation,” Brunk told KWCH. “We’re working on the best way to protect Kansan’s first amendment rights.”
Brunk may change some of the bill’s text, but the title alone should make every LGBT person in Kansas, their supporters, and supporters of true religious freedom, concerned.
As it stands now, here’s how the bill could impact a same-sex couple:
Say John and Steve are legally married in New York, and John gets a great job at a company in Kansas. The couple decide to move – perhaps John was raised in Kansas – and so they pack their things and head to the Sunflower State. The couple want to rent a hotel, but the manager of the hotel they drive to refuses them a room, claiming his company has sincerely held religious beliefs against same-sex marriage. After searching for another hotel, the couple check in. They go to a restaurant, but are refused service because the waitress sees them holding hands and claims she has sincerely held religious beliefs against same-sex marriage.
The couple need to rent a home, but the real estate broker when the two pull up for an appointment claims he has sincerely held religious beliefs, so the couple are forced to find another agent. Once they do, the company that owns the apartment building says they won’t rent to a same-sex couple, because of their sincerely held religious beliefs. Let’s not forget that John and Steve have already quit their jobs and packed their belongings. Kansas is starting to look pretty unfriendly.
Perhaps John’s employer learns John is married to Steve after John fills out his new-hire paperwork, putting Steve down as his emergency contact, or adding him to his health insurance. John gets fired because the company knew he was gay and could “tolerate” it, but marriage violates the owner’s sincerely held religious beliefs.
Perhaps you say, this is an extreme story and could never happen. Perhaps, but even if only one instance did, it would have the effect of the State of Kansas telling a same-sex couple they are not entitled to live with the same assumptions or protections of basic living that different-sex couples assume every day of the year.
Why?
As it passed the House, the “Protecting religious freedom regarding marriage” bill allows any “individual or religious entity” to deny services to anyone “if it would be contrary to the sincerely held religious beliefs of the individual or religious entity regarding sex or gender.”
The definition of a “religious entity” in the bill is broad, so, not just churches or synagogues or mosques, etc., but any “privately-held business operating consistently with its sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Think of it as a Hobby Lobby-type bill against same-sex marriage.
Specifically, it states, no governmental entity, or law, could require them to “[p]rovide any services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges; provide counseling, adoption, foster care and other social services; or provide employment or employment benefits, related to, or related to the celebration of, any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement.”
It also allows people to refuse to “solemnize any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement,” or “treat any marriage, domestic partnership, civil union or similar arrangement as valid.”
Not only that, but if they sue, the individual or religious entity refusing to provide services gets the cost of their lawsuit, including attorney fees, paid for.
Yes, Kansas is starting to look pretty unfriendly.
As for Rep. Brunk, on his campaign website he states, “I believe government should be limited to core functions and accomplish what the private sector cannot. Our policies should protect individual freedoms, expressions of faith, traditional family values, and promote free markets. A primary function of government is to promote justice while protecting people and property.”
It’s unclear how this legislation could possibly be said to do that.
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Image via YouTube
Hat tip:Â Joe Jervis
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
