Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ceremonially signed a bill Wednesday that updates the anti-discrimination statutes for the Connecticut Military Department.
The new law, which is already in effect, prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression.
It coincides with changes made by the U.S. Military, which recently announced it would lift its ban on transgender individuals.
Malloy applauded Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s decision to lift the ban on transgender individuals serving in the military and to welcome female soldiers to combat positions.
The legislation stands in stark contrast to the Republican Party’s platform adopted earlier this week, which denounces the use of Title IX to protect transgender individuals in schools. The Republican platform said bureaucrats and the president of the United States should not use Title IX “to impose a social and cultural revolution upon the American people by wrongly redefining sex discrimination to include sexual orientation or other categories.”
Malloy, who heads the Democratic Governors Association and supports Hillary Clinton for president, disagrees with Republicans on the issue.
“We couldn’t be more different on this issue of recognizing people’s rights to live their lives the way they want,” Malloy said.
As far as the Republican Party’s platform, “there are parts of the Republican platform that could have been written in 1816 and other parts that could have been written in 1916 and just about no parts that should have been written in 2016,” Malloy added.