Watching for the latest bills in the Kansas Legislature is as entertaining as a reality TV show – think  “Duck Dynasty.” You just never know what will happen next.
We’re not sure what prompted the House’s “Religious Freedom Bill,” which would protect Kansans’ right to discriminate against people in same-sex marriages, but even some clergy spoke out against it.
At least we know why a bill was introduced to make sex education in public schools an opt-in instead of opt-out class. This happened after one school put a sex-ed poster up in a classroom, and a teenage girl (and her father) found it offensive. The poster was removed without an act of the Legislature, but the bill got introduced, anyhow.
We’re confused about what the spanking bill is all about. It sounds as if it’s saying parents can’t beat their kids, but open-handed swats in schools are OK, so long as the physical damage is no worse that a bruise.
In the future, those zany legislators will need to come up with even more outrageous bills, or their ratings may slip.
Perhaps someone will introduce a bill that says everyone should have a gun in their home, and learn how to use it, or pay a tax to help cover the cost of additional law enforcement. Teachers should carry guns unless they can demonstrate their ability to administer the Vulcan Nerve Pinch.
Anyone wishing to vote should undergo a retinal scan and drug test.
Teachers must start each school day by leading students in reciting The Lord’s Prayer, unless the students opt to wait in the principal’s office and study.
Any public employee in a union should make an annual donation to the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, “just to be fair.”
A bill on climate change will fail and instead a bill will be introduced to officially proclaim “droughts, tornados and floods are Acts of God,” about which nothing should ever be done.
Science teachers should explain both sides of the theory of Carbon-14 dating and that no one really knows how old anything on Earth is.
All very entertaining, and sure to put Kansas in the national limelight. Meanwhile, it allows the Legislature to ignore bills that might truly preserve our freedoms, such as one broadening the Kansas Open Records Act.