*State-funded travel
California adds 4 states to travel ban for laws it says discriminate against LGBTQ community
(CNN) California has issued a ban on state-funded and state-sponsored travel to four more states that it says have laws discriminating against LGBTQ people.
The travel ban was first put into effect January 1 when state measure AB 1887 became law. The law says California is "a leader in protecting civil rights and preventing discrimination" and should not support or finance "discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people."
The travel ban list also includes states that California believes don't protect religious freedoms and states that it says use religious freedom as a basis of discrimination.
"Our country has made great strides in dismantling prejudicial laws that have deprived too many of our fellow Americans of their precious rights. Sadly, that is not the case in all parts of our nation, even in the 21st century," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement Thursday.
Why the ban?
Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee were the original states banned by AB 1887, but Becerra added Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota and Texas on Thursday, citing what he called new discriminatory legislation enacted against the LGBTQ community in those states.
Alabama, South Dakota, and Texas all recently passed legislation that could prevent LGBT parents from adopting or fostering children and Kentucky passed a religious freedom bill that would allow students to exclude LGBTQ classmates from campus groups.
AB 1887 prohibits state-funded and state-sponsored travel to states with laws that authorize or require discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression or against same-sex couples or their families.
The California legislation went into effect on January 1, 2017. This restriction applies to state agencies, departments, boards, authorities, and commissions, including an agency, department, board, authority, or commission of the University of California, the Board of Regents of the University of California, and the California State University.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/23/us/california-travel-ban/index.html
