Parody legislators & Wyoming's legacy of hate

In the movie “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” a bigoted cop bullies a young man, telling him he should move to Cuba because “they kill gays down there.” His target replies, “No, you’re thinking of Wyoming.”

Wyoming’s reputation was thus tarnished with Matthew Shepard’s 1998 murder and is tarnished anew annually by the introduction of shameful anti-gay legislation. The more outrageous the bill, the more national ridicule it attracts.

This year’s entry is “The Marriage and Constitutional Restoration Act,” sponsored by Laramie County Representative Lars Lone and Campbell County’s Roy Edwards. The bill died but the stench lingers. It won’t be the last time these two Republican lawmakers use their positions to bully others. They have long competed for recognition as the most hate-filled members of the legislature. With HB167, the prize is theirs.

The proposal is a broad attack on the LGBTQ community, combining bigotry with silliness. As one website said, “The bill, in one fell swoop, says Wyoming shouldn’t recognize same-sex marriages, uphold anti-discrimination measures protecting LGBTQ people, or back legislation allowing people to pee in the correct bathrooms in public places.” 

The Lone-Edwards bill attempted to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision recognizing same-sex marriages demonstrating these politicians neither understand nor respect the Constitution.

It’s no surprise that they would sponsor such legislation. An unhealthy amount of their time is spent worrying about how people have sex and in which bathroom they do their business.

Their current effort to legislate bigotry defines marriages between men and women as “secular in nature.” Secular refers to something with no religious or spiritual basis. Think about it. They are willing to abandon the religious nature of marriage in order to make their point. In contrast, marriages between people of the same sex are, they say, “part of the religion of secular humanism.”

Thus, goes their argument, “the state of Wyoming is prohibited from endorsing or favoring religion over non-religion,” under the 1^st Amendment. If you have difficulty following the logic, that speaks well of you. With a Kindergartener’s understanding of civics, Lone and Edwards believe a bill passed by the Wyoming legislature overrides decisions of the highest court in the land. (Spoiler’s Alert: It doesn’t.)

With malice aforethought, they use the term “parody,” defined as “a feeble or ridiculous imitation” equivalent to “intentional mockery or a travesty.” Their bill attempts to redefine marriages between people of the same sex as “parody marriages.” Actually, parody marriages describe the one the President entered while continuing to have sexual relationships with a porn star. The Lone-Edwards bill failed to discuss that sort of parody.

Demonstrating disdain for both facts and the LGBTQ community, their bill claims there’s been “a land rush” by those who support same-sex marriage “to infiltrate and indoctrinate minors in public schools to their religious worldview.”

In the final analysis, Lone and Edwards seek to have the law include requirements that the State of Wyoming and its political subdivisions recognize marriages devoid of religious or spiritual meaning while prohibiting it from recognizing loving marriages between people of the same sex. They think they outsmarted the Supreme Court. They only outsmarted themselves.

It is noteworthy that HB167 is about religious beliefs. Representative Edwards claims to be an Independent Baptist. Lone self-identifies as a “Christian,” code for “I haven’t committed to any church.” This bill proves neither has ever read the Gospels. Now, that is not a requirement to serve in the legislature unless you seek to impose your less-than-well-thought-out religious views on the rest of this. 

If my words sound angry, it’s because I am. I’ve witnessed marriages between people of the same sex, including that between my brother and his husband, a most loving 20-year relationship ending with “death do us part” as my brother died. As a pastor, I have officiated at weddings between people of the same sex, blessing the joyful beginnings long-term commitments.  

They were not “parody” marriages. However, what we have in Roy Edwards and Lars Lone are a couple of “parody legislators.”

Why do politicians protect tobacco?

The Centers for Disease Control is the government agency charged with fighting the scourge of tobacco-related disease. President Trump’s CDC director was forced to resign when she was caught quietly investing in tobacco company stock. She planned to fight for the tobacco companies as do most Wyoming legislators.

Why do policymakers bet on tobacco rather than the health of Americans. Just how did such a deadly product achieve protective status among Wyoming and other politicians? It is a long and sordid story, a trail paved with gold.

Let’s time travel. Let’s go back to that long-ago day when the first tobacco company pitched the predecessors of something like the Wyoming Business Council. The chair calls the meeting to order.

“We have a promising economic development opportunity. I have invited Mr. Philip Morris to tell us about it.”

“Gentlemen and ladies, we have a fine product here. It is called tobacco. It grows easily in certain parts of the country. It will grow in almost any kind of soil. The tobacco leaf has many uses. You can smoke it in your pipe and now we have invented a method of wrapping it in paper. We call that ‘a cigarette.’ Tobacco can also be chewed.

“By stealing farm land from Native Americans and using slaves to plant, cultivate, and harvest the plants we kept costs down and profits high. The end of slavery had little impact. By that time millions were addicted to both tobacco and the money it generates. Tobacco couldn’t always rely on free labor and land so we cultivated compliant legislators.

“Tobacco is profitable even in cold weather states. You may not grow it here, but the good news is tobacco is highly addictive. Between 1890 when Wyoming became a state and 1903, tobacco sales in the USA rose from $25 million to over $316 million. Sales will be 10 times that amount by 2018. Addiction assures a high return on investment.

“Even in Wyoming, you can build an economy around tobacco. Grocery stores, bars, and convenience stores will make so much money off tobacco that they will hire lobbyists to make sure lawmakers don’t pass laws taxing or regulating its sale.

“Until we allowed lawmakers to say otherwise, we even peddled this stuff to kids. The younger they are when they start, the more addicted they are, the more we sell. Eventually, taxes and limited regulation were imposed. But the tobacco lobby was strong enough to make certain politicians didn’t do anything if we didn’t agree. Just a wink and a nod and an occasional campaign contribution and things were under control.

“In the interest of full disclosure, there is one problem we need to mention in passing. There is no safe way to use tobacco. Tobacco kills. The people who die and the illnesses they suffer will cost your healthcare system millions of dollars. Some 800 Wyoming citizens will die annually from tobacco. Twelve-thousand kids alive today in Wyoming will die from tobacco use and secondhand smoke. By 2018, 3 of 10 cancers will be tobacco related.

“Wyoming healthcare costs attributed to tobacco exceed a quarter of a billion dollars annually. Medicaid costs will total 44 million each year. Of course, legislators will blame poor people, not tobacco. Besides, the costs of tobacco-related illnesses can be shifted to average taxpayers.

“Increased taxes and bans on public smoking reduce tobacco use and save lives. Fortunately, those sorts of proposals require a commodity in short supply, i.e. courageous legislators. As our lobbyists will explain, tobacco retailers all across Wyoming depend on those folks getting sick and dying to make a few bucks.

“Wyoming has one of the lowest tobacco taxes in the United States and, at the same time, fiscal deficits of tens-of-millions of dollars. Even so, lawmakers will protect tobacco, rather than the health of the people.

“What can I say?  Wyoming tobacco peddlers hired better lobbyists than did people with cancer or emphysema. That’s how it works in the Land of the Free.”

A prophet is not without honor except...

John Perry Barlow died this month. It was about people like John that the Sagebrush Gospel quotes Jesus. “A prophet is not without honor except in his own home, especially if home happens to be Wyoming.” In John Perry Barlow, Wyoming missed another chance to honor one of its own prophets. Such was John. Such is Wyoming. 

John was the son of Norman Barlow, a Republican icon and Sublette County rancher. An influential member of the Wyoming legislature from 1947-1963 he chaired several powerful committees and served a term as Senate president in 1959.

According to Wyoming historians Kim Ibach and William Howard Moore, Barlow’s sense of justice was violated when Juanita Simmons, an African-American woman he hoped would be hired to teach in young John’s school, was denied the job because of the color of her skin. Barlow was motivated to become a leader in fighting for civil rights laws in the 1950s. Senator Barlow sponsored legislation repealing Wyoming’s “separate but equal” school law in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown versus Board of Education.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, things were not going well. Young John was, according to a 1995 People magazine biography, such a hell raiser around Sublette County that Norman shipped him off to a military school in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I’d guess Norman came to believe things only got worse.

There John met a guitar player named Bob Weir. Upon graduating, John headed for Connecticut where he majored in comparative religion at Wesleyan University. Weir, meanwhile, was in San Francisco pulling together a band he named “The Grateful Dead.”

Weir called on his old friend John Perry Barlow to write for “the Dead.” John wrote songs like “Mexicali Blues” and “Hell in a Bucket.” He returned to Wyoming to take care of his ailing father who died in 1972. The Barlow ranch became a favorite hangout for a fascinating group of John’s friends. People like Marlon Brando and John F. Kennedy, Jr. were frequent guests. Occasionally John toured with “the Dead.”

John told People magazine how much he loved ranching and the West. It was during these years that I met him. It was 1982, and I was the Democratic Party’s nominee for the United States Senate. John was the chairman of the Sublette County Republican Party. Wyoming Republicans were then transitioning from the moderates of Norman Barlow’s days to the right-wing extremists of today. My views on protecting Wyoming land, water, and air were more akin to John’s politics than those of the GOP. So, the chairman of the Sublette County Republican Party endorsed this Democrat.

Unfortunately, John didn’t stay around long after that. By the mid 1980s, he became one more casualty of Wyoming’s provinciality and its war on its own young people. Like many young, bright thinkers with new ideas, he left the state. John found a prophet is honored everywhere except in his home state. John packed up his keen intellect, joyful sense of humor, vision for a better planet, his world-class creativity, and took it to New York.

With Wyoming in the rearview mirror, John became an Internet pioneer. According to Wikinews, “Barlow was an early commentator on Internet culture,” writing for “WIRED” magazine. A cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, he helped define what he called “digital citizenship,” with a 1996 essay entitled “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.”

John helped create the Freedom of the Press Foundation in 2012. Wikinews called the Wyoming native “a foundational figure” in the web culture, citing his appointment to Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and John’s selection as a member of the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013.

May John rest in peace. May Wyoming grow restless.

Wyoming must grapple with just how many young people of John’s caliber have felt the sting of Wyoming’s selfish-conservatism and taken their gifts elsewhere. The brightest stars are people like John Perry Barlow and keeping them here is critical to Wyoming’s future.