A House bill that adds lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual and queer (LGBTQ+) people as a protected class in Alaska was the subject of public comment hearing on Monday, during the bill’s review in the Alaska House Labor and Commerce Committee.
In a change from prior years that has been unrecognized by left-run media, the House is giving a respectful ear to bills offered by minority caucus Democrats.
The bill was offered by Rep. Jennie Armstrong, who ran for office as a pansexual, (a person who is variously sexually attracted to any manner of gender identities.) It’s a vague virtue-signaling term that allows people to be gay or not gay, depending on the day or time, or depending on the audience.
For over 90 minutes, people from Alaska and beyond called in to testify in favor of House Bill 99, which has the support of leftist groups such as Planned Parenthood. Only two people called in to oppose the bill.
In addition to sponsor Armstrong, Reps. Andrew Gray, Ashley Carrick, Rebecca Himschoot, Genevieve Mina, Andi Story, Cliff Groh, Andy Josephson, Alyse Galvin, Zack Fields, Donna Mears, Neal Foster, C.J. McCormick, Sara Hannan, Bryce Edgmon, and Calvin Schrage have cosponsored the bill.
Committee Chair Mat-Su Rep. Jesse Sumner has received over 900 letters supporting the bill — all of them contained the exact same wording, also urging members to oppose the governor’s parental rights bill, which would prohibit schools from being able to rename students or re-gender students without their parents’ knowledge.
HB 99 says that it would be unlawful for a real estate broker or sales person or any other entity to say in any way that a person who is LGBTQ would be an undesirable person in a neighborhood, and would lower the surrounding property values or create a decline in the quality of nearby schools. That protection as a special class would be extended to “gender identity or expression,” “sexual orientation,” or gender preference in sexual relationships, among other things.
According to a report submitted to the committee, a 2012 Gallup poll show that 3.4% of people in Alaska identify as LGBT.
