Rep. Brian Duprey has introduced a bill in the Legislature that mockingly ties together two highly charged and controversial issues. Duprey’s bill would make it illegal for a woman to abort a gay fetus, should the technology ever exist to determine if sexual orientation is biological. The bill, L.D. 908, is called “An Act to Protect Homosexuals from Discrimination.” A better name might be “An Act to Unite People (Who Often Bitterly Disagree) in Opposition to a Dumb Idea.”

There is an earnest disagreement about abortion in which both sides feel passionately. And discrimination against gays and lesbians exists, sometimes insidiously and other times openly and violently.

Duprey’s bill trivializes the real debate over abortion and the real discrimination faced by gays and lesbians. Maybe it’s a device to get attention as a prelude to a possible run against Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. Duprey has told the Christian Civic League of Maine, according to their online newsletter, that he is “willing” to challenge the incumbent in a Republican primary.

If that’s his ploy, Duprey will find that the attention this type of bill draws will do him little good.

Duprey, in a news release about the bill, tries to be sincere, maybe. He says, “”Most people would agree that to kill someone just because that person might be gay would constitute a hate crime. I have heard from women who told me that if they found out that they were carrying a child with the gay gene, then they would abort. I think this is wrong. Those unborn children should be protected.”

People of good faith and good conscience can disagree about abortion. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear should recognize that gays and lesbians face discrimination and recrimination based solely on their sexual orientation. They should also see this bill for what it is: ludicrous and offensive.