State Rep. John Carmichael (Photo: Carmichael for Kansas).
It might seem impossible in the state that twice elected Sam Brownback as governor, but a bill to prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination is finally going to get a hearing nearly 11 months after it was first introduced.
The bill, HB2323, was introduced by Rep. John Carmichael (D-Wichita) during the final hours of last year’s legislative session, in response to Brownback’s decision to rescind a nondiscrimination executive order for LGBT state employees that was issued by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D).
The bill, as introduced, amends a number of statutes to include sexual orientation and gender identity among a list of protected classes when it comes to discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. House Judiciary Chairman John Barker (R-Abilene) has granted the bill a hearing on Jan. 14, three days after the legislature convenes for its 2016 session, The Wichita Eaglereports.
While the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-dominated legislature, or even emerge from committee, Barker has at least promised to hold a hearing on the issue. But social conservatives are expected to mobilize their forces to defeat the bill, claiming it violates their First Amendment rights to express their religious beliefs.
“It will of course be up to the committee and the whole body, but I think it needs to be aired,” Barker told the Eagle. “And I like to listen to people. I like to listen to both sides of an argument.”
“I think the people of Kansas need to understand that anti-LGBT discrimination does exist in this state and there are steps we can take to end it,” Tom Witt, the executive director of Equality Kansas, said in a statement expressing support for Carmichael’s bill.
Meanwhile, Carmichael is happy just to get a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee to ensure that LGBT people will be protected from being unfairly fired or evicted from their homes.
“Where the bill progresses from there, I cannot offer a guarantee,” he told the Eagle. “I think it depends in large part on what happens in the hearing and quite frankly on what happens in society outside the Capitol as well.”
In one of the stranger crime sprees of Pride Month, a masked man on an electric unicycle is reportedly stealing Pride flags across Longmont, Colorado.
Since Memorial Day weekend -- just ahead of Pride Month -- the man has vandalized homes by bending flagpoles and tearing down flags.
Sheryl Colaur, one of the victims, told the Longmont Daily Times-Call that at least 10 -- and possibly as many as 15 -- of her neighbors in Longmont's Harvest Junction Village neighborhood have had their Pride flags stolen, allegedly by the same man.
WorldPride participants share why Pride still matters, what issues drive them, and why visibility remains vital in today’s political climate.
By André Hereford, Ryan Leeds, and John Riley
June 21, 2025
WorldPride DC on Sunday, June 8, 2025 - Photo: Randy Shulman / Metro Weekly
Interviewed on Saturday and Sunday, June 7 and 8, 2025, at the WorldPride Street Festival, Parade, and March for Freedom.
Nic Ashe
Los Angeles, Ca.
Queer, He/Him
Why did you come to WorldPride?
I've been following WorldPride through the lens of Black queerness, namely with a focus on Christianity and religion. Early in my life, when I think about the first times that I was learning that queer may be a pejorative or that being gay was "not good," it was through my church upbringing. So I was very curious to find if there were examples in 2025 of those two oxymoronic opposing forces existing in harmony.
A fundamentalist church in Indianapolis is defending a June 29 sermon in which a lay preacher urged congregants to pray for LGBTQ people to die and suggested they kill themselves.
The remarks, delivered by Stephen Falco during a “Men’s Preaching Night” at Sure Foundation Baptist Church, included multiple homophobic slurs, biblical references, and rants against Pride Month, LGBTQ rights, and what he called “disgusting” and “evil” behavior, according to TheIndianapolis Star.
"Why do I hate sodomites, why do I hate f****ts? Because they attack children," Falco ranted in the sermon, video of which was posted to Sure Foundation Baptist Church's YouTube channel. "They're coming after your children, they are attacking them in schools today, and not only schools, in public places, and they're proud about it!
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