Back from the dead: LB485; LGBT employment discrimination bill to be debated by full Nebraska Unicameral

The Judiciary Committee has apparently changed its collective mind. The Omaha World-Herald explains what happened (links added by AKSARBENT):

In February, the bill generated only three yes votes in the Judiciary Committee, two short of the majority needed to advance it to debate by all senators.
     But on Monday, the vote was 5-1 to move the bill.
     Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop, who was not present in February, voted yes. So did Hyannis Sen. Al Davis, who voted no in February, citing several emails from constituents who opposed LB 485.
     Davis said he’d given the proposal a lot of thought since then and concluded that people should not be discriminated against for matters he considers “biological.”
     “I finally decided you have to do the right thing,” he said.
     Also voting yes were Sens. Brad Ashford and Ernie Chambers, both of Omaha, and Sen. Amanda McGill of Lincoln. Hastings Sen. Les Seiler voted no, and Sens. Colby Coash of Lincoln and Mark Christensen of Imperial were not present.

     As God is his witness, home-schooled climate change denier and steadfast homophobe Sen. Beau McCoy of Elkhorn has vowed to filibuster the bill, after which he shall never go hungry again.



Below: Sen. Chambers' AMAZING rant during a pre-session Unicameral Judiciary Committee hearing on the effect of DOMA in Nebraska last fall:

NE DOMA hearing: Atheist Sen. Chambers' half-hour pro-gay rant: drops gay f-bomb, calls state backward, says that like Jefferson, Henry and Washington, he likes black women too; rips fellow senator for possibly outing rural neighbor; impatient hetero supremacists revolt
     Caught in a four-way crossfire between Sen. Chambers vs.Sen. Christensen and Sen. Ashford vs. angry heterosexual supremacists tired of waiting to testify was one Brian something-or-other, a polite, cute and, at times, vaguely alarmed tax attorney who will probably think twice before ever again agreeing to testify before the Nebraska Unicameral.
     Highlights:

• 3:30 Mail-order minister and self-declared atheist Chambers trolls for lawyers to help him find a gay couple to marry so he can sue Nebraska for not granting a marriage license
• 3:44 Calls Nebraska backward, among other things
• 4:38 Recounts his lawsuit to get chaplain out of legislature
• 7:18 Sen. Christensen rises to the bait, expounds on "homersexuals"
• 10:26 Chambers talks about Thomas Jefferson and statutory rape, notes that like Jefferson, Patrick Henry and , he too, likes black women. (Chambers is black.)
• 13:22 Chambers drops the gay F-bomb
• 16:14 Chambers gets the tax attorney to crack a smile by characterizing Catholic Church's indulgence of Michelangelo's same sex tendencies by claiming their position was "We got a little sugar in our britches sometimes also; we understand things like that"
• 17:37 Sen. Christensen gets some payback from Chambers, who never forgets anything, over a stray comment he made at a previous hearing about a gay neighbor
• 22:20 Impatient hetero supremacists revolt, fearing that they won't get to testify by the 2 pm cutoff of the five-hour hearing, as there is no end in sight to Chambers' monologue; Judiciary Committee Chairman Brad Ashford quells the insurrection