A Nevada Assemblyman, seeking the GOP nomination for a Congressional seat representing the suburbs of Las Vegas, compared the pending Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) in Congress to ‘segregation.’

In a far ranging interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Crescent Hardy, 56, a Nevada Assemblyman and business man, called ENDA, a federal law that would make it a crime for an employer to discriminate against an employee based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, a “segregation law.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“When we create classes, we create that same separation that we’re trying to unfold somehow,” he explained. “By continuing to create these laws that are what I call segregation laws, it puts one class of a person over another. We are creating classes of people through these laws.”

Segregation laws were previously used to maintain separate but equal facilities in the ‘Jim Crow‘ south.

Hardy has previously opposed a similar law at the Nevada state level.

In the same interview, Hardy, who is a Mormon, said that he also opposes laws permitting same-sex marriage, adding that it should be a state decision.

“I will always vote against same sex marriage because of my religious beliefs, the way I was raised,” explained Hardy. “For me to vote for it would be to deny the same God that I believe in.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Hardy is currently facing Tea Party Republican Niger Innis in the June primary for the right to oppose incumbent Rep. Steven Horsford, a Democrat representing Nevada’s 4th Congressional District in November.