HOMOPHOBIA
State Lawmaker Compared Homosexuality to Pedophilia While Speaking to GSA Students

Wyoming Equality has accused Wyoming State Senator Lynn Hutchings of comparing homosexuality with pedophilia and bestiality during a meeting last week with students from Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) members from across the state.
10 students from the Cheyenne Central High School Gay Straight Alliance requested a meeting with Hutchings, with the goal of discussing HB 230, the Enhancing Quality Employment Law. The bill would have given workplace protections to LGBTQ people, but died in the House on Monday. Students intended ask Hutchings to support the bill.
According to the complaint letter Wyoming Equality sent to State Senate President Drew Perkins, Hutchings did meet with the students, but said that she was unfamiliar with the bill in question.
After students explained that the bill would protect against discrimination in the workplace involving sexual orientation and gender identity, Hutchings compared such protections to sexual promiscuity, including pedophilia and bestiality.
According to the complaint letter, Hutchings said, “If my sexual orientation was to have sex with all of the men in there and I had sex with all of the women in there and then they brought their children and I had sex with all of them and then brought their dogs in and I had sex with them, should I be protected for my sexual orientation?”
Students attempted to clarify the issue with the senator, but she was unwilling to listen further. The students and a teacher quickly left the Senator after she attempted to “fist bump” with the students, and hugged one of them.
Hutching, who ran on a platform that included mention of “Wyoming’s Traditional Values” — language typically associated with a right-wing, conservative platform — has been critical of LGBTQ people before.
In 2013, during a debate over a LGBTQ-inclusive domestic partnership bill, Hutchings claimed that being gay was harmful to the mind spirit, and body, and claimed that being gay was “a choice,” contrasting it to being Black.
“Science does not evidence a genetic involvement to homosexuality.,” said Hutchings, who is Black. “It is but a choice. Being black is involuntary, it is not a choice. Homosexuals may choose who they want to be.”
Wyoming Equality is seeking an apology.
“The Central High School students and their sponsor deserve a clear, direct apology and clarification that Senator Hutchings behavior was unacceptable and inappropriate of an adult and elected official,” the said in the complaint letter.
Image via screen capture from video source.
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