ACLU of Kentucky

The 2010 General Assembly got under way on January 5^th and, by all accounts, we’re in for a very tough session.  Each year ACLU of Kentucky staff and members travel to Frankfort to lobby the legislature on important civil liberties issues.  This work is made possible through the money raised from ACLU membership dues.  So if you’re not yet a member, or you need to renew, this is the perfect time of year to do so.

            While it’s early in the session, and many bills have not yet been filed, we do have several priority issues that we are proactively working on.   We continue to seek the restoration of voting rights for former felons and statewide protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  We want to see comprehensive sexual education taught in our schools and the death penalty abolished from our judicial system.  And we will advocate for more inclusive hospital visitation rights and a couple’s right to choose if, when, and how to become parents.

The Reproductive Freedom Project is advocating for comprehensive sexual education legislation, which will provide Kentucky’s students with medically accurate and age appropriate healthcare information, so they can make healthy decisions. We are encouraged this year by the Federal government’s recent move away from funding abstinence-only programs and towards teen pregnancy prevention programs.  Additionally, Federal incentives and state legislation passed in 2009 for education reform favor innovative programs – a real opportunity for comprehensive sexual education to make headway in 2010.

            Years of work to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky have led us to a virtual tipping point.  This past fall the ACLU of Kentucky brought the Journey of Hope tour to seven college campuses across the state, addressing alternatives to capital punishment from the perspectives of murder victim family members and exonerated death row inmates.  Just this month the American Law Institute, which created the intellectual framework for the death penalty adopted as part of the Model Penal Code, disavowed the structure they’d created as irretrievably broken; a moral and practical failure.  Additionally, in the last year Ohio switched to a single chemical for lethal injections and New Mexico repealed its death penalty entirely.  In light of the current climate, we feel that legislation introduced to ban capital punishment for individuals with severe mental illness has a good chance of passing the Kentucky General Assembly.

            We continue to push for statewide Fairness protections and legislation has already been filed to amend Kentucky’s Civil Rights chapter to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in housing, employment, and public accommodations.  We are also promoting second-parent adoption legislation which would provide additional security for children by redefining stepparent to include any non-relative adult person who the court finds shares parental responsibility for the child.  Similarly, legislation has been proposed that would allow patients over the age of 18 the ability to designate an individual not legally related as an immediate family member.  In effect, this legislation would guarantee hospital visitation rights so that individuals can take care of their loved ones in a time of need.     

            And the campaign to restore the right to vote to former felons who have paid their debt to society is gaining steam.  Kentucky is one of only two states left in the country that continues to disenfranchise people in this way and it’s time for a change.  This legislation has gained additional supporters every year and after Sen. Damon Thayer refused to give the bill a hearing last year because he “hadn’t heard from his constituents” that the issue was important to them, the ACLU of Kentucky and our allies spent a lot of time in Thayer’s district over the past nine months.  There were several editorials and letters to the editor that appeared in the local paper and hundreds of Sen. Thayer’s constituents contacted him because of these efforts.

            Legislation will undoubtedly be put forth that threatens civil liberties as well, and we will be steadfast in our efforts to defeat such efforts at every turn.  If you would like to lobby with us in Frankfort between now and April, please contact the ACLU of Kentucky office at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .  And please consider joining or renewing your membership, or making an additional donation during the General Assembly to support our endeavors to shape public policy for all Kentuckians.

            You can track these issues and more during the 2010 General Assembly through ourLegislature Update page!  Stay informed by following the ACLU.