The House Judiciary committee killed a bill Wednesday that would’ve defined anti-Black sentiment, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-Indian sentiment, homophobia, Indian, Islamophobia, sexism and transphobia in state law.
House Bill 1155 also would’ve made it “unfair or discriminatory practice if any adverse or unequal treatment … is based on homophobia, Islamophobia, sexism, transphobia, or anti-Indian, anti-black, anti-immigrant, or anti-refugee sentiment,” and made the Division of Human Rights consider those definitions in reviewing, investigating or deciding claims.
According to committee discussion and questioning of the bill, the opposition to the bill stemmed from the fact that each of the definitions weren’t worded similarly enough to the definition of antisemitism in House Bill 1076, despite the fact that the bills look at different types of discrimination altogether.
HB 1076 defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews that may be expressed as hatred toward Jews, including rhetorical and physical acts of antisemitism directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals or their property, or toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities,” according to the bill’s text engrossed by the House.