Winters in the upper plains can be harsh. Apparently, such harsh conditions can make people mean. Real mean. Whatever the cause is, state lawmakers in North Dakota are really on a streak of ugly meanness.
Take, for example, State Senator David Clemons, who introduced a bill that would fine any institution $1,500 if they use anything other than a state-approved pronoun for a child. In this case, state-approved would be what's on the birth certificate.
Fortunately, it appears that Clemons transphobia is restricted to himself. He was the only person to speak for the proposed legislation while more than 90 people spoke out against it. Furthermore, it would be doubtful that it would stand up to any legal challenges:
“Respectfully, I see no way this law would pass any sort of legal challenge based on basic legal construction principles. It’s vague, fails to advance any legitimate state interests, and not only would cause impermissible, gender-based discrimination, its very purpose is gender-based discrimination,” said Christina Sambor with the ND Human Rights Coalition.
North Dakota also have librarians in their sights, introducing a bill that would sentence a librarian to jail for 30 days if they allow a book with "sexually explicit content" to remain on the shelves:
Books containing “sexually explicit” content — including depictions of sexual or gender identity — would be banned from North Dakota public libraries under legislation that state lawmakers began considering Tuesday.
The GOP-dominated state House Judiciary Committee heard arguments but did not take a vote on the measure, which applies to visual depictions of “sexually explicit” content and proposes up to 30 days imprisonment for librarians who refuse to remove the offending books.
But wait! There's more. There's always more.
North Dakota State Senator Jeff Barta griping about all the days off that American workers are getting, including the day after Thanksgiving:
"I look at this from the perspective of a small business owner, my frustration was always the day after Thanksgiving," he said.
He then turned to the current proposal to make Juneteenth a paid holiday.
"It just seems like... we're having more and more days off for whatever," he said. "And how people choose to take advantage of those days and which days they take off, I would like to leave that to the individual and their individual employer to determine what it's going to be. So strictly from a commerce standpoint I'm not a fan of adding more non-working days to the calendar."
The article goes on to note that workers in the United States get less days off than in any other developed nation in the world.
I don't know but I would think that sending some CBD gummies to North Dakota might go a long way to mellowing out these fascists. At least, it sure couldn't hurt.
