LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Four Kentucky advocacy groups, including the local teachers union, have put up a billboard to criticize what they call discriminatory practices by the Kentucky Farm Bureau.
The billboard reads “Kentucky Farm Bureau: Big on Discrimination,” and was placed along Interstate 65 so that commuters heading towards the fairgrounds can see it. The fair is scheduled to start Aug. 20.
The billboard, from the ACLU of Kentucky, the Jefferson County Teachers Association, Louisville Showing up for Racial Justice and the Fairness Campaign, also includes a web address so that people can download a copy of the 2020 Kentucky Farm Bureau policies book and watch a video of people who oppose the policies. The video includes U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., and state Rep. Attica Scott, D-Louisville.
“We believe in fair wages,” Yarmuth says in the video, while Scott says, “They (KFB) believe in LGBTQ discrimination.”
The groups said in a news release that the KFB’s policies are “overtly anti-LGBTQ, anti-teacher, anti-union, anti-choice, anti-POC, pro-death penalty, and more.”
“Unbeknownst to most of them, Kentucky Farm Bureau Insurance customers automatically pay an annual fee that enrolls them as members of the Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation, the insurance company’s lobbying arm, which last year spent more than $85,000 to lobby the Kentucky General Assembly on what the groups say are 'discriminatory ... policies,'" the groups allege in the news release.
According to the release, the Kentucky Farm Bureau supports the idea that people who receive welfare and nutrition assistance should submit to random drug testing, and it opposes, among other things:
- Gay marriage
- Collective bargaining for public school employees
- The teaching of alternative lifestyles in schools
- Raising the minimum wage
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