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Anti-LGBT lawmakers in Oklahoma introduced a record number of hateful bills this year, but equality advocates have quashed every single one of them.
While the nation turned its attention to the upcoming presidential election -- and the escalating violence at Republican front-runner Donald Trump's rallies -- LGBT advocates in Oklahoma scored a major victory.
Freedom Oklahoma, the statewide LGBT equality group, announced in a Thursday Facebook post that the record-breaking 27 pieces of anti-LGBT legislation introduced this session had all been defeated.
BREAKING: ALL 27 ANTI-LGBTQ BILLS ARE DEAD!!!We have seen a truly unprecedented level of community advocacy this...
Posted by Freedom Oklahoma on Thursday, March 10, 2016
Freedom for All Americans, the LGBT advocacy group that emerged from now-shuttered group Freedom to Marry, notes that Oklahoma "had one of the most aggressive packages of anti-LGBT bills in the country."
The Sooner State had the dishonorable distinction of introducing the most anti-LGBT bills in a single session of any state legislature to date, reports Zack Ford at ThinkProgress. Much of the legislation was championed by noted antigay Republican Rep. Sally Kern, who has previously equated gay people with terrorists and who last session introduced three anti-LGBT bills all on her own.
Ford has a comprehensive accounting of the more than two dozen bills introduced, including so-called religious freedom bills that opponents branded a "license to discriminate," anti-trans "bathroom bills," and what Ford calls "a novel attack on youth."
House Bill 3044 (introduced by Rep. Kern) sought to "prevent any school counselor, therapist, administrator, or teacher from providing students with any guidance or information about 'human sexuality' without notifying their parents," Ford reports. "In other words, school officials can do nothing to affirm LGBT students without outing them to their families."
