JEFFERSON CITY - It was not a good day to be gay at the Missouri Capitol Wednesday.
In separate actions, Missouri lawmakers moved forward with measures to both ban same-sex marriages and to bar public institutions from including sexual orientation among groups protected against discrimination.
Gay marriages would be explicitly prohibited in the Missouri constitution, under a measure that received initial approval by the full House Wednesday after several hours of debate.
Rep. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington, sponsored the proposed constitutional amendment, which would have to go to Missouri voters for approval later this year.
"The time is now to decide whether we want Missouri to include same-sex marriage," Engler said.
The Senate has already passed similar legislation, and observers say the House action Wednesday paves the way for final approval of a same-sex marriage amendment by both chambers.
Same-sex marriage is already banned in Missouri under current law. But proponents of a constitutional amendment say they are concerned a future court challenge could strike down that statute as unconstitutional. By codifying the ban in the constitution, that would no longer be an issue.
Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, called the vote the "most important thing we've done this session," and said he did not want to leave the matter open to a judge's interpretation down the line.
"A constitutional amendment is the way to go," Wilson said. "Their hope (the Democrats) is that a liberal judge will come along and say you have to have gay marriage."
But opponents of the constitutional amendment were equally adamant, saying they did not want to see "discrimination written into the Missouri constitution."
Rep. Matt Muckler, D-St. Louis County, told his colleagues the "intellectual dishonesty" of the process was "disgusted" him.
"We aren't supposed to write discrimination into the constitution, we are supposed to protect against it," said Rep. Vicki Walker, D-Jackson County.
Lee McDaniel of Joplin, a director of United Church of Christ Family Fellowship, has previously told the Globe he believes the current law banning same-sex marriages should be enough for those who oppose the practice.
"Good and honorable people who are uncomfortable with gay marriage should be happy with the current law," McDaniel said. "Those pushing for a constitutional amendment are simply out to demonize gays and lesbians as second-class citizens or as morally inferior."
"It's kind of interesting that these very conservative groups want government out of your life and yet here they are putting government into these very personal aspects of it," said Shirley Breeze, with St. Louis-based Missouri Women's Network.
Breeze was also in Jefferson City to testify against the second bill dealing with gay rights Wednesday: a measure to prohibit institutions receiving state funding from exceeding federal anti-discrimination guidelines.
That bill, sponsored by Rep. Kevin Wilson, was approved by the House Workforce Development and Workplace Safety Committee in a 9-5 vote earlier in the day.
Currently, "sexual orientation" is not included among those groups given federal protection against discrimination. A number of public institutions in Missouri, however -- most notably the University of Missouri system -- have added "sexual orientation" to their own anti-discrimination policies.
Under Wilson's bill, such institutions would have to remove those clauses or risk losing their state funding.
Wilson said he did not believe taxpayers' money should be spent to "increase the groups given special protections" beyond the federal guidelines. He said expanding protected groups would also open up institutions to additional lawsuits.
"There is a difference between harassment and discrimination," Wilson said, saying that gays and lesbians would still be protected against harassment in the workplace, and could if that happened.
But if passed, the measure would prevent gays and lesbians fired from their jobs simply because they were gay from having any legal recourse.
"They would have no standing (to sue)," Wilson said.
"Someone can walk up and say 'You're gay, we don't want you here, get out' and there's no attorney anywhere that can help you because there's no law that has been broken," said Jeff Wunrow, executive director of PROMO, a gay-rights lobbying group.
Breeze said the bill was "using the guise of adherence with federal regulations" as an excuse to "remove rights from segments of the population."
"If it would be one bill with that kind of intent I wouldn't be so upset," Breeze said. "But now it seems like every other bill that comes up in the legislature is trying to make life tougher for disenfranchised segments of our society...like gays and lesbians."
Wilson called the measure an "economic issue," and said it was the responsibility of lawmakers to be "stewards of the people's money."
"We shouldn't be using tax dollars to support a choice someone makes," Wilson said. "Where does it end?"
Wunrow said the "two-fer" handed down by the legislature Wednesday left him frustrated.
"It was like someone said, let's kick gay people in the head twice today."