Kansas and Missouri: Meth labs of democracy?
Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” looked to our neck of the woods Thursday night in search of some easy ridicule.
First up, Kansas and the bill introduced by Democrat state Rep. Gail Finney of Wichita that would give parents the OK to spank their children harder.
Kansas, Stewart said, is “where state lawmakers are asking their parents, is that all you’ve got? put your back into it.”
The bill that would give parents or people they authorize — as Stewart put it: “birthday clowns, other children, local drifters, boogeymen or -women, whoever it is in your life that you believe hits the hardest” — the freedom to to spank children to the point of leaving a mark.
But, Stewart asked, “how do you punish their brain? For that, we turn to Missouri.”
There, Stewart drew attention to a bill that would give parents the option to pull their kids out of science classes that discuss evolution. Then he suggested the trend could turn the state’s schools to focusing on an all-Bible curriculum in which the only appropriate focus of wood-working classes would be ark construction.
“All right,” Stewart said, “we’ve had our fun. Let’s move on to another state.
“It’s really Kansas? Again?”
The focus this time? A bill allowing people to deny services to same-sex couples if they have religious objections to homosexuality. Or, as the fake anchorman calls it, “the no-cake-for-gays bill.” The bill cleared the House, but looks doomed in the Kansas Senate.
Mercifully, just when you feared he could point out that Kansas City must be the capital of the “meth labs of democracy,” Stewart then moved on to Arizona, where the state Senate has passed a similar bill applying religious freedom toward denying services to same-sex couples.
This story was originally published February 21, 2014 at 8:14 AM with the headline "Kansas and Missouri: Meth labs of democracy?."