By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
Political history has shown us many times that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the Republican-dominated Kentucky General Assembly is proving the truth of that adage.
Hate-mongering is alive and well among the GOP’s veto-proof lawmakers who charge on with their efforts to turn back the clock here in the Bluegrass State.
It appears they are determined to force us back to a time when fear of something or someone different was justification for mistreating those who don’t look or act like the rest of us — the good, God-fearing, Anglo-Saxon descendants who are the “real” Americans and Kentuckians.
With a dozen of their brethren running for governor, the Republicans have cleverly devised “hot button” legislation that is guaranteed to be vetoed by Gov. Andy Beshear, thereby becoming potentially a political liability for him in this year’s run for a second term.
The most blatant example of this strategy was the successful effort of Sen. Max Wise, running mate of gubernatorial candidate Kelly Craft, who almost single-handedly resurrected the anti-trans bill and helped make it even more hateful with harsher restrictions on those already-marginalized families.
By the time you read this, the lock-step Republicans in the General Assembly likely will have overridden the governor’s veto and started bragging about how those strange folks are going to have to go to their own original restrooms, use the correct pronouns in identifying themselves, play on the intended sports teams and dare not consult with medical personnel about their gender conflicts. But nothing will be said about their suicide rates.
These are the same legislators who again refused to make exceptions to their cruel anti-abortion laws to protect the victims of rape and incest and those pregnant women at risk by carrying fetuses with fatal birth defects to full term.
And never mind all of the legislative meddling in how public-school teachers handle their classes. KEA and other education groups will find it much harder to organize protests when they no longer receive membership dues automatically deducted from teacher paychecks.
That heavy-handed payback for the state’s largest teachers union was clearly an example of sometimes when you mess with the bull, you get the horn.
(Contact Keith at keithkappes@gmail.com).
