Oklahoma: Impeach Obama for Transgender Mandate

State's GOP lawmakers say bathroom directive in schools is unconstitutional
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted May 20, 2016 1:16 PM CDT
Oklahoma: Impeach Obama for Transgender Mandate
President Barack Obama speaks to members of the media in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Friday.   (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

President Obama issued a mandate last week that transgender students must be allowed to use whichever bathroom and locker room they wish in any US public school—and now Oklahoma's GOP-heavy legislature wants him impeached for it, the Hill reports. A measure was filed Thursday night directing Oklahoma members in the US House of Representatives to file articles of impeachment against the president for taking liberties with his constitutional powers and yanking the power to make such decisions from the states, per Reuters. The call for impeachment, which also goes after Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Education Secretary John King Jr., isn't binding, but the state's Republicans are hoping it will be enough to nudge its reps to make the move in the House.

"Oklahomans are simply not going to stand for this utter nonsense," state Rep. John Bennett said in a release, per the Tulsa World. "[Obama's] directive is biblically wrong, a violation of our state's sovereignty and it is a serious public safety issue." Reuters notes that a separate bill is expected out of Oklahoma Friday that would give non-transgender students a religious out with "separate but equal" bathrooms and locker rooms that would allow for segregation—a costly construction proposition. "In a time when our state is facing an unprecedented economic crisis, our lawmakers should be focused on righting the ship rather than stigmatizing transgender youth," the director of LGBT advocacy group Freedom Oklahoma said in a statement, referencing recent cuts in education funding. (Oklahoma lawmakers also want to make abortion a felony.)

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