Photography by Benson Kua, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
It’s still legal for Missouri businesses to fire, evict, or refuse service to any person perceived to be gay, lesbian, or transgender, and Ron Calzone wants to keep it that way.
The ranch owner and director of conservative think tank Missouri First testified before a Missouri House committee Wednesday in opposition to bipartisan effort to add gender identity and sexual orientation to a list of protected identities.
“Everyone’s afraid to say this, so I’m going to say it,” Calzone told the committee. “In America, you have a right to discriminate as a private citizen. In America, if you don’t like the color of someone’s eyes or their hair or the way they talk, you have the right to not associate with them.”
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Calzone said he’s afraid that protecting LGBT citizens from workplace discrimination will force him to hire “a certain type of employee” and cause other employees to quit. When one Missouri representative asked whether Calzone’s right to discriminate extends to African-Americans, Calzone responded emphatically yes.
“I think that I have the God-given freedom to discriminate as a private individual against anyone for any reason I want to,” Calzone said, adding that laws should prevent the government, not businesses, from anti-LGBT discrimination.
The majority of witnesses who testified at the hearing—including the National Council of Jewish Women and the St. Louis Regional Chamber—spoke in favor of House Bill 407, which would update Missouri’s law barring discrimination against people based on race, religion, age, and sex by adding sexuality and gender identity.
The state of Indiana is spending millions of dollars to repair its damaged reputation after legislators passed a religious freedom law allowing discriminatory practices that are already permitted in Missouri, including refusing services to anyone perceived to be gay or transgender. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence changed the law after national outrage and boycotts.
“Missouri better hope that corporations never figure out that it’s already way ahead of Indiana when it comes to discriminating against gays,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in an editorial.
LGBT advocates have been pushing to add gender and sexuality to the list for 15 years, but the bill has never made it past the House. In 2013, for the first time ever, the Senate passed a non-discrimination bill, but the House never voted on it.
“Discrimination is wrong,” said Stephen Weber, the Democrat representative who sponsored the bill, adding that one of his friends was recently kicked out of a cab because of his perceived sexual orientation. “It’s unjust. When we find it, we should end it. When the state allows it, we should fix it.”
Though the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce and some of the area’s largest employers support the anti-discrimination bill, the statewide chamber of commerce opposed it. Jay Atkins, a lobbyist for the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber wouldn’t support adding new classes to the state’s anti-discrimination law until the legislature passed employment-law reforms.
Atkins said his opposition to the bill shouldn’t be misinterpreted as support for anti-LGBT discrimination. Atkins himself wrote the chamber’s internal anti-discrimination policy to include protections for gay and transgender people.
“To suggest that we are here to advocate for discrimination is offensive and untrue, but we are advocating for reforms to the employment law,” Atkins said.
Rep. Gina Mitten accused the state chamber of holding the rights of LGBT people hostage in its quest for employment-law reform.
“Using equality as a bargaining tool to weaken rights for all Missourians is offensive to my family and loved ones, who deserve the same rights as everyone else,” Mitten says.
