The Human Rights Campaign recently released its State Equality index. It’s an annual state-by-state report that reviews statewide laws and policies that affect LGBTQ+ people and their families. Cathryn Oakley is the senior director for legal policy at the Human Rights Campaign. “I think that it is a sign of where we are politically and socially, culturally. That the states that are in that bottom group, including of course Arkansas, those are all states that I don’t think anyone would be surprised to hear that they’re in the bottom group.”
Arkansas lawmakers passed a number of laws in last year’s legislative session restricting the rights and conduct of LGBTQ+ people. Those laws include banning teachers from referring to students by preferred pronouns, as well as a bill limiting “adult-oriented” performances in the state.
According to Oakley, this is part of a concerted legislative attack on the LGBTQ+ community nationwide with a focus on trans adults. “That was a pivot from where we had been before. That is not the kind of rhetoric that we were hearing even in 2019. And having a report like this crystalized that. I think it’s really valuable and it really tells the story of where opposition has really been investing their resources.”
Oakley says polls show that voters have a very low priority for these issues and have a dozen things they care about more. She contends that through gerrymandering state legislatures are taking advantage of voters’ low interest in LGBTQ+ issues to enact policies that are only desired by a very small percentage of the population.
