CA Travel Ban 

New restrictions prohibit state-funded travel to anti-gay states.

BY VICTOR MELAMED

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) will bar state employees from business trips to four states after those states passed measures limiting the rights of LGBT people, reports The Hill.

The new restrictions prohibit state-funded or state-sponsored travel to Texas, Alabama, Kentucky and South Dakota, Becerra said Thursday.

“When California said we would not tolerate discrimination against LGBTQ members of our community, we meant it.”

State legislators in Texas, Alabama and South Dakota this year passed new laws allowing adoption or foster parent agencies to refuse service to LGBT families. A new Kentucky law would allow student organizations at state schools to block LBGT people from membership.

California’s Democrat-dominated legislature passed a measure last year barring state-funded travel to states that allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Already, the law has blocked employee travel to four other states—Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee, reports The Hill.

“While the California [Department of Justice] works to protect the rights of all our people, discriminatory laws in any part of our country send all of us several steps back,” Becerra said in a statement. “That’s why when California said we would not tolerate discrimination against LGBTQ members of our community, we meant it.”