Firemen too. Horrible sexist terms, not gender-neutral.
It’s almost official: There soon will be no more firemen or policemen in Washington.
And they’re vanishing with barely a whimper.
The state Senate voted 41-1 on Friday to get rid of all references to “fireman” and “policeman” in a state law about public employee pensions and replace them with gender-neutral words: firefighter and police officer.
For the record, the only “no” vote didn’t come from a man. It was cast by Sen. Val Stevens, an Arlington Republican serving her 15th year in the Legislature.
“This is my reason for voting no,” Stevens told The News Tribune. “Number one, because it is silliness. Number two, it will slop over into all aspects of government and evolve into another item of political correctness. And we don’t need any more politically correct items to have to figure out and try and deal with.”
She sounds like a Neanderthal, oops, we shouldn’t use that term according to Geico. And this is more than just “police officer” and “firefighter.”
Senate Bill 5063 also tells the Office of Code Reviser, the agency that translates legislative proposals into state laws, to pore over the thousands of state statutes after the Legislature adjourns April 22 and find which laws need to change “he” to “he or she.”
The bill still must be approved by the House and signed by the governor before it becomes law.
Sounds like a waste of taxpayer money to me. State sanctioned and enforced political correctness. What is next, a rule enforcing gender-neutral debate in the State Legislature (not going to happen)? Where is Bill Maher when you need him (obviously not in Olympia, WA)?
