A pair of bills introduced in the Kansas state legislature this week calling same-sex unions “parody marriages” are modeled after draft measures written by an anti-gay activist who has filed a series of lawsuits in different states seeking to marry his laptop.

The Republican-sponsored bills, introduced Wednesday, were called the “most vile” bills in the state’s history by the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Kansas. They seek to classify the LGBTQ community as a "secular humanist" religion, restrict same-sex marriages and permit “gay conversion therapy.”

THE BILLS

Introduced by seven Republican lawmakers, the Marriage and Constitution Restoration Act, refers to the LGBTQ community as a “denominational sect that is inseparably part of the religion of secular humanism.” The “LGBTQ secular humanist community,” the bill states, “has the gay pride rainbow colored flag to symbolize its faith-based worldview.”

By taking this approach, the bill’s authors are seeking to prove that same-sex marriage is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from “establishing” a religion.