Evan Low / Image via Facebook @Assemblymemberlow
It looks like the state of California has shelved two more LGBT rights bills, and they won’t be reintroduced until 2020.
Last year, we shared with you that Evan Low’s bill against paid gay conversion therapy had been put on hold. The openly gay state assemblyman said that the decision was based on tough pushback from the Christian community, and he wanted to find a way to serve them and his LGBTQ constitutes.
But now it looks like that bill has some company, as two other bills aimed at protecting LGBTQ citizens have been delayed.
On Friday, May 17, the state legislature sent Assembly Bills 650 and 758 to the appropriations committees in both houses, due to requiring significant costs. Bills sent to these fiscal panels are often shelved or outright killed, according to the Bay Area Reporter. Unfortunately, these bills, which were supported by LGBTQ rights group Equality California, were just as unlucky.
I had a fun chat w/ @JohnChen, CEO of @BlackBerry. We discussed the importance of diversity and what advice he’d give to others in advancing to a leadership position in business and in tech. Video coming soon! Happy #APIHeritageMonth ! Thx for the hospitality, John! #blackberry pic.twitter.com/7ubiSBuXxy
— Evan Low (@Evan_Low) May 17, 2019
AB 650 was another bill proposed by Evan Low. The bill would have required the police to track the murder and suicide incidences connected to sexual orientation and gender identity. Being able to quantify these incidences would help raise support for fighting them.
Then there was AB 758 by Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo. The bill sought to fix the pay gap between trans and non-binary workers and their cisgender peers. This would have updated the California Equal Pay Act now that state law recognizes a third, non-binary gender.
For that second bill, the panel found that the bill had “significant costs” on the state’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. They guessed that retaliation claims would raise costs by an estimated $1.4 million. And for Low’s bill, it was estimated that the Department of Justice would need to put $150,000 behind whatever method the police developed for tracking murder/suicide incidents.
Despite these drawbacks, both bills are expected to be reintroduced in January of next year. With them will be gay state Senator Scott Wiener’s bill to ensure intersex individuals can provide consent before any medical treatment/interventions.
Source: Bay Area Reporter
