Montana lawmakers soon will be considering bills to ban the death penalty and to allow or forbid physician-assisted suicide when a terminally ill patient requests it.
The 2011 Legislature also will take up a proposal to add sexual orientation and "gender identity and expression" to the state Human Rights Act and protect those classes of people from discrimination.
Niki Zupanic of ACLU Montana said many of the new legislators were swept in with the national sentiment for a smaller, limited government.
"We're hoping that sentiment will hold true on social issues as well," she said. "Things like a woman's right to choose, reproductive freedom and freedom for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community."
The ACLU again will be working to ban the death penalty in Montana. The Senate approved a ban in 2009, but it stalled in a House committee on a tied vote.
"On the issue of whether the state should continue to hold onto this broken system of holding onto the death penalty, it costs way too much, it doesn't work and it's a poor use of tax dollars," Zupanic said.
Sen. Ron Erickson, D-Missoula, will sponsor the bill to abolish the death penalty.
As for physician-assisted suicide, Rep. Dick Barrett, D-Missoula, is introducing legislation to implement a 2009 Montana Supreme Court decision to allow this procedure when a terminally ill patient requests it.
"My sense is that terminally ill Montanans really do want to have this choice available to them, not that large numbers of people take advantage of it," Barrett said when requesting the bill draft earlier this year.
"We'll be advocating for Montanans to continue to have access in aid in dying and to make those decisions with their doctor without government interference," Zupanic said.
Jeff Laszloffy, president of the Montana Family Foundation, said his group stands against physician-assisted suicide.
"I think one of the big ones we're really going to be fighting is the legalization of assisted suicide in Montana," he said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Greg Hinkle, R-Thompson Falls, is requesting a bill to ban physician-assisted suicide in Montana. He has referred to it as "elder abuse."
The Montana Human Rights Network will try to expand the state's Human Rights Act to include "sexual orientation and gender identity and expression," program director Kim Abbott said. Among other things, that would forbid employment discrimination against this group.
"It's adding those classes to the bedrock human rights law in Montana." Abbott said. "We were able to get protection at the local level in Missoula, so we're feeling good about the effort."
However, Abbott predicted it would be an uphill battle at the Legislature because of its makeup.
"We think it's important to give lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people a space to tell their story and for people who are elected leaders to hear them," she said.
Sen.-elect Tom Facey, D-Missoula, has asked for this bill to be drafted.
However, Laszloffy said the Montana Family Foundation will stand opposed to any attempts to protect homosexuals under the state's hate crime law, to allow homosexual couples to get same benefits as heterosexual couples and to authorize civil unions between same-sex couples.
"This is probably not the best session for that agenda, given the numbers in the House and Senate," he said.
Source: Missoulian, December 8, 2010
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