King: Homosexuals shouldn’t advertise their sexuality

Steve King

If homosexuals want to avoid discrimination they should be more discreet about being homosexual, U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, said Tuesday on the radio program of Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

King and Perkins were discussing the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Perkins expressed fear that “someone could come in dressed one day as a woman or a man, the next day they come in dressed as the opposite sex” and an employer would be “helpless to do anything about it.”

King agreed, saying the legislation opens the door to Christian businesses getting entrapped by the “homosexual activist lobby.”

“I can imagine someone coming in and interviewing one day in man’s clothes and come back the next day and apply for a job in woman’s clothes, and then setting up a lawsuit in a sting operation to harass our religious organizations,” he said.

King then told a story about his days in the Iowa Senate, when gay activists came to lobby a fellow Republican lawmaker, state Sen. Jerry Behn of Boone, for protected status for sexual orientation and gender identity.

He said, “Let me ask you a question. Am I heterosexual or homosexual?” And they looked him up and down — and actually they should have known — but they said “We don’t know.” And he said “Exactly my point. If you don’t project it, if you don’t advertise it, how would anyone know to discriminate against you?” And that’s at the basis of this.

If people wear their sexuality on their sleeve, then they want to bring litigation against someone that they would point their finger at and say “you discriminate,” it is an entrapment that is legalized by the ENDA Act, it appears to, and its a violation of the individual rights of employers to, at their own discretion, decide who they want to hire and who they want to fire. We don’t need more federal mandates. And we surely don’t need a political statement, and that’s what this is, too. This is the homosexual activist lobby taking it out on the rest of society. They are demanding affirmation for their lifestyle. That’s at the bottom of this.

The LGBT blog “Good As You” took exception to King’s portrayal of ENDA.

So the goal is for state senator Behn, like all Americans, to be judged not on the basis of his sexual orientation, but rather on his qualifications. What the far-right refuses to admit is that ENDA protects everyone, not just LGBT people! Everyone has a sexual orientation. Everyone has a gender identity. Every employer, including LGBT ones, have the capacity to unfairly discriminate on the basis of gender/sexuality. So therefore, everyone benefits from a world where education and training and experience and viewpoints (which very well might include contrasting ideas about work related to causes, even LGBT/anti-LGBT ones) and merit are the qualities of job consideration.

In the state of Iowa, gay citizens’ rights are protected under the Iowa Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, credit, public accommodations and education.”