ACLU analyzes the legislative session

The bad news is civil liberties weren’t more of a legislative priority this session. But the silver lining is that the RI ACLU did an excellent job of documenting their wins and losses in this end of the session recap on their recently revamped website.

“The passage of marriage equality legislation was not only the highlight of this year’s General Assembly session, it was about the only light,” it reads. Bills to restrict sex discrimination and racial profiling were ignored while “the legislature instead approved in the closing hours of the session a diverse anti-civil liberties agenda, which included bills promoting sex discrimination in school extracurricular activities, providing funding to an anti-abortion religious organization, weakening the state’s open records law, and subjecting teenagers to felony penalties for committing graffiti offenses.”

There’s tons more information on the RI ACLU’s new website – including an analysis of bills relating to abortion, open government, free speech, immigrant rights and many others…