Toto returns to Kansas or did Dorothy sing "Somewhere over the rainbow" for nothing?

Ahh TOTO you are indeed back in Kansas

I got fed up with Kansas last night.  I've been a little PO'd at them since some fellas dressed in brown shirts thumping bibles took over things. I'm not joking, in some school districts and pretty soon following other state's lead, the schools will have to send notes home to parents WARNING them of a lesson that will include references to evolution.

Now Kansas, after setting its sights on on Darwin, has decided to skip merrily down the yellow brick road and legalize discrimination against the Gay/Lesbian community (Kansas walks itself off the religious cliff).

It is a very dangerous thing when the state also dabbles in religion - not to mention crawls into bed with a segment.  We went through a lot of turmoil last century when a thug raised "moral" objections on behalf of the state against any Jew.  I suggested that Kansas was behaving like Nazi thugs to the benefit of a small segment of their body politic and it was just a matter of time before a "deeply held religious value" would spring up against people of color, Jews and eventually any non-believer.  Once you give justification for bigotry with the full support of the state and its laws, you are just a stone's throw from the worst examples in human history.

So I posted up the blog thread at about half a dozen newspaper comment areas.  None were published although I did  get a note back from one of the mid-sized papers -who had, sadly, failed to even mention the bill being passed this week in its online edition.  She said "Our policy is not to print letters or comments that refer to our readers or residents as "'Nazi'".

I wrote her  back, this esteemed member of the press, this bastion for the public good, as follows:

Dear Fraulein,

I would think it the duty of the press to call out policies and behaviors that throw the full weight of state law behind a religious movement. Your legislature has given a wink and a nod to behavior that is abhorrent.  It smacks of not serving blacks at lunch counters or standing by and smiling when Jewish businesses are looted, windows broken, and Jews beaten in the street. Once you give your population an unchallengeable legal foothold to explore the dark recesses of bigotry and hatred, then, Fraulein, you are in the Nazi mold, like it or not.

Yours truly,

A white, Lutheran-Jewish mixed heterosexual with gay friends.