Idaho Republicans: Void anti-discrimination laws in case 'gay guy' works 'in a tutu'

Cornel Rasor, who chairs the Idaho Republican Party's resolutions committee, says that he pushed for a resolution to void all local ordinances banning discrimination against LGBT people because he wants to be able to fire any gay man who "comes into work in a tutu."

The Associated Press reported that a non-binding resolution passed Saturday at the party's Central Committee summer meeting in McCall calls for the state legislature to block anti-discrimination ordinances passed by at least five municipalities throughout the state.

For seven years, the Republican-controlled Legislature has refused to add sexual orientation to the Idaho Human Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on race, religion and disability. So local governments like Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Ketchum, Moscow and Boise have responded by passing their own ordinances protecting LGBT people.

That's a trend that the Idaho Republican Party wants to stop before it spreads to more towns.

"I’d hire a gay guy if I thought he was a good worker," Rasor explained at the party's summer meeting, according to The Spokesman-Review. "But if he comes into work in a tutu … he’s not producing what I want in my office."

"If a guy has a particular predilection and keeps it to himself, that’s fine," he added. “But if he wants to use my business as a platform for his lifestyle, why should I have to subsidize that? And that’s what these anti-discrimination laws do.”

The Spokesman-Review reported that the central committee approved the resolution with "little debate."

The resolution states: "Resolved, that the Idaho Republican State Central Committee recommends that our legislators support Idaho’s current anti-discrimination laws and policies and enact a law that would make unenforceable any municipal ordinances that would seek to expand categories of prohibited discrimination beyond current state anti-discrimination laws and policies."

Watch this video from KBOI, broadcast June 17, 2013.

[Photo credit: cornelrasor.com]