Trump’s Anti-Gay Nominee for Religious Freedom Ambassador Just Can’t Come Up With a Good Reason Why He Killed LGBT Protections

In 2009 Brownback Refused to Comment When Asked if ‘Homosexual Conduct’ Should Be Criminalized

Sam Brownback was grilled by Democratic U.S. Senator Tim Kaine Wednesday morning on why the Republican Governor had killed protections for state LGBT workers in Kansas. Brownback, currently the Kansas governor and an anti-LGBT religious extremist, is President Trump’s nominee to become the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

Senator Kaine asked Governor Brownback during his confirmation hearing (video) why he revoked an executive order, written by his predecessor, at the start of his second term in office. That executive order had made it illegal to discriminate against LGBT state employees.

“That was an order that created a right by the executive branch that wasn’t available to other people that wasn’t passed by the legislative branch,” Brownback explained as his reason for leaving the entire state workforce without protection from discrimination or even firing for being or even being perceived as LGBT. 

In 2015 Gov. Brownback rescinded the order, signed by then-Governor Kathleen Sebelius. 

Brownback defended his actions to Sen. Kaine, who refused to accept his reasoning.

Kaine reminded Brownback that within his first ten minutes of becoming governor of Virginia, he signed an executive order protecting LGBT state employees, because it was the right thing to do and set the proper example of what he stood for.

Sen. Kaine also asked Gov. Brownback if he was aware that there are countries in which being LGBT is illegal, and in some the penalty is death. He also asked him if he was aware that the justification for the criminalization of being LGBT was often a religious justification.

Brownback sidestepped the question by announcing that he had just had a conversation with Randy Berry, the first and current U.S. Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons. 

By Brownback rescinding the executive order, an LGBT professor, for example, at the University of Kansas who during the eight years the order was in place could have come out, and after Brownback rescinded the order, could have been fired.

One year later Brownback signed an anti-gay “religious liberty” bill into law, calling groups that discriminate against LGBT people the “building blocks of society.” He also has ties to the anti-LGBT organization, known as The Family, that promoted Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill. In 2009 Brownback refused to comment when asked if “homosexual conduct” should be criminalized.

The Kansas governor went on to tell Sen. Kaine that he could not see any reason why the current State Dept. policies toward LGBT people would change if he were to be confirmed.

Senator Kaine clearly was not convinced.

The Washington Correspondent for the Kansas City Star noted on Twitter that Senator Kaine “tells me after the hearing that he’s very troubled by Brownback’s answers on LGBT discrimination.”

The Wichita Eagle notes that Brownback will likely be confirmed, thanks to the GOP majority in the Senate. He will have a $7.7 million budget.

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