Never underestimate the ability of wingnuts to come up with new ways to punish those who don't fit the Ozzie and Harriet mold.
Here in Kentucky, an attempt by the University of Louisville to follow the Fortune 500's lead in offering benefits that attract top-quality employees had the repugs setting a new low in hate legislation.
Last year U of L began offering employees the option of buying health insurance for "domestic partners."
The "religious" freaks naturally - well, freaked. "Slippery slope!" they screamed. "Gay marriage!" "Mandatory sodomy for 5-year-olds!"
Never mind that the program applied to any domestic partner - heterosexual or homosexual. Never mind that the benefits would be purchased by the employee at no cost to the university or the taxpayers of Kentucky. It was a small step toward dragging Kentucky into the 21st century. It had to be stopped.
So the republicans proposed legislation banning domestic partnership benefits. But it was written in their usual force-everyone-on-earth-to-do-things-our-way style. It would have banned benefits being offered to anyone other than a spouse or children. No benefits for heterosexual live-ins. No benefits for indigent parents. No benefits for orphaned nieces and nephews, or abandoned grandchildren. No benefits, no how, no way.
Get married or else.
The Democrats in the House managed to beat it back, but barely. Two of the Democrats on the House Health and Welfare Committee - Bob Damron of Nicholasville and James Spencer of Prestonsburg - voted in favor of the bill.
It's too bad - Damron is a good guy on a lot of things, but when it comes to anything remotely smacking of sex, he releases his Inner Puritan.
Seriously, somebody needs to get these idiots laid.
