5/26/2016

In Louisiana, the Governor and the Attorney General in a Battle Over Transgender Rights

If you wanna know how to make a dysfunctional government clusterfuck even more dysfunctional and clusterfucky, look to Louisiana for an example. Right now in the Oil-Covered Pelican State, the Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards (who, let's be frank, was only elected because Republicans ran hooker-hiring shit-fetishist and sitting senator David Vitter) and the Republican attorney general, Jeff Landry, are locked in a war over rights for the LGBT population. It's a fine day for democracy in the Deep South.

In April, a couple of months into his first term of trying to unfuck everything that Gov. Bobby "Hurricane Katrina in Human Form" Jindal left behind, Edwards issued an executive order saying that state employees and contractors can't discriminate against people because of sexual orientation or gender identity. In an awkward, somewhat backwards, but progressive for Louisiana statement, Edwards said, "We respect our fellow citizens for their beliefs, but we do not discriminate based on our disagreements." Immediately, there were screams that Edwards was attacking "people of faith" because, obviously, religion should dictate our laws and that makes us totally not like Muslims who want Sharia law because it's Christianity, motherfucker.

Yesterday, Landry issued an opinion on the executive order saying that Edwards' order "has no binding legal effect." And that would be totally true, except for the fact that, barring a lawsuit and a stay of the order, it's completely untrue. Because, see, "Previous Louisiana governors have had executive orders in place to protect the gay, lesbian and bisexual community -- without this type of pushback from previous attorney generals." You know where this is heading? To the fucking bathroom again. Yup, 32 Republican legislators wrote to Landry, concerned about "gender identity" as a concept and seeking to keep those filthy trans shitters out of their pristine potties.

By the way, Landry, a former Tea Party Caucus member in the House, thinks that being transgender is a mental illness and he told Tony Perkins of the nutzoid Christian Family Research Council (motto: "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone, unless you're transgender, in which case we'll just stone you"), "The good Lord doesn't build us in that particular way" and, obviously, religion should dictate our laws and that makes us totally not like Muslims who want Sharia law because it's Christianity, motherfucker.

Oh, and he signed Louisiana onto the multi-state lawsuit against the Obama administration for its directive telling schools not to be dickholes about transgender people using bathrooms and locker rooms. Funny story about that: Landry never told Edwards, the governor, that he was tossing Louisiana into the mix. Edwards' spokesperson said the governor is "reviewing" the situation.

Isn't divided government fun? Isn't a divided executive branch even funner?