The Anything but Equality Act

In government, when a name is applied to an act, or a bill, chances are that name is intended to obfuscate. The Equality Act, numbered HR 5, to be voted on next week, is not about equality.

HR 5 adds SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) to the list of protected classes in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In granting that special protection to these behavioral preferences (or, arguably, mental conditions or illnesses), the bill has the more direct result of removing rights that are specifically identified in the First Amendment: freedom of religion and conscience, and freedom of speech.

Just in case it could be construed otherwise, the bill adds this:

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (42 U.S. C. 2000bb et seq.) shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under, a covered title, or provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of a covered title.

In other words, when the Federal Government attempts to coerce persons to act against their beliefs, the First Amendment and RFRA, the usual defenses, are not allowed to be used.

What are the supposed inequalities the act is purported to address? Discrimination toward homosexuals and transgendered individuals in relation to housing, employment, and public accommodation. There may be some actual discrimination that could be addressed. We can probably agree that people, simply because they’re human, deserve the right to purchase or rent housing. But we also ought to agree that there are limits to this right.

Among those limits ought to be the right to separate housing for males and females in school dormitories for those who choose this separation. A woman renting out a room in her home ought to be able to choose not to rent to a man. And there ought to be a right for a women’s shelter, for example, to exclude males from accommodation at that shelter.

Privacy and safety concerns ought to allow women the right to assume those they share intimate spaces with—such as a dorm room, a public bathroom, or a locker room—are for women only, not for men. Likewise, even though fear of being overpowered and raped is not at issue, men ought to feel free to use a urinal without someone of the opposite sex observing them.

The so-called Equality Act refuses to acknowledge any of these reasonable and justifiable feelings. The feelings and preferences of LGBT individuals are given supremacy.

We’ve talked about the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, where a baker refused to participate in a same-sex wedding. The Supreme Court ruled that he didn’t have to make the cake—but didn’t go so far as to say he actually had the right to refuse. The Court just said that he had been persecuted by his state’s animus toward his religion, leaving open the possibility that he or others could be coerced to participate against their religious convictions—if the state went about it without obvious religious animus.

Masterpiece Cakeshop, screenshot from this video

So for cases in that category, business owners who have not refused to serve anyone but have refused to participate in particular activities that go against their deeply held religious beliefs could be coerced to act against conscience. Not so that LGBT people can get equal treatment—which they already had from those very defendants—but so that LGBT individuals can enforce their agenda and coerce the business owners.

The SOGI agenda is already harming women. This is most obvious in sports. Women’s sports are separate from men’s sports specifically because women are physiologically different from men. Men typically have greater upper body strength and more muscle mass. Even mediocre male athletes are likely to outperform excellent female athletes in contests of strength and speed. But recently, biological males who want to compete in women sports are allowed to, and females are mostly cowed into silence for fear of social reprisal, which includes being called transphobic and bigoted and being publicly scorned and shamed, and also may include legal lawsuits for going against the SOGI agenda. These female athletes lose out on scholarships and other benefits of excelling in women’s sports, cancelling out any benefit intended by Title IX.

Among the most troubling products of the pro-SOGI agenda are the loss of reason surrounding transgendered or various “other” genders controlling language of everyone around them, as well as common sense among mental and physical healthcare doctors, and parents.

Pronoun invention goes against how languages function and develop. A pronoun is not something a person has a right to; it is a way people who may not know anything about them beyond how they appear can refer to them in absence of a name, or out of convenience in conversation. Why should a person who claims a different gender have a right to persecute someone for using a different pronoun than that person prefers? That preference may not have been conveyed. And, even if it has, pronoun usage is a shorthand for referencing the person to a third party; it’s not a direct reference wherein a name or “you” would be used. The person taking offense isn’t even involved in the conversation in which he or she is referenced. To additionally insist on requiring words that aren’t even a natural part of the language involves so much hubris that a person might choose never to interact with whoever makes such a requirement.

What other use of normal conversation subjects a person to prosecution, persecution, loss of employment, and social ostracism? That much control over our language is something we have never granted our government and only an extreme tyranny would attempt.

About caregivers, the way the SOGI agenda works, only agreement—affirmation—is allowed. Therapists can’t say, “Let’s take a look at the underlying issues before we go ahead with anything drastic or permanent”: they can lose their license for lack of affirmative “therapy.” Even saying, “That’s not something I’m ready or qualified to support; let me recommend you to a different counselor” can be construed as breaking the law, leading to loss of license.

So, the law purported to prevent discrimination among a full range of employment opportunities actually removes employment opportunities from people who have worked hard to earn their licenses and have done nothing but try to offer their expert opinion about what constitutes appropriate care.

This bill isn’t to guarantee that LGBT people can get access to regular healthcare, such as for a disease or a broken leg. Of course they get that, and no new law is required to guarantee it. What this does is coerce physicians to do harm. Suppose a biological female comes in, claims to be a male, and insists on a hysterectomy; a doctor who sees surgically removing healthy organs as abhorrent and refuses to do it can lose the ability to do good for all the other patients she would come in contact with during her long career.

With the SOGI agenda infiltrating both healthcare and schools, fit parents are suddenly subject to losing their parental rights—simply for not jumping in to fully affirm a child’s confused concept about what that child imagines his or her sex to be—regardless of biology and everything the parents have known about that child from birth. Recognizing that gender confusion often disappears by adulthood, that transitioning typically continues or increases suicidality, that transitioning causes sterility and additional serious detrimental health consequences—all these facts are to be disregarded by parents.

Need to do some more reading on the Equality Act before you call your congressional representative? Here are some pieces specifically about HR 5:

·         “The Equality Act: Harming Children and Hijacking the Rights of Parents” from United Families International 

·         “H.R. 5 Is No Act of Equality” from The Heritage Foundation 

·        “ The ‘Equality Act’ Would Mark the End ofReligious Conscience” by Bruce Hausknecht for The Daily Citizen 

·         “Equality Act Is About Civil Tyranny, Not Civil Rights” by Star Parker for The Daily Signal 

·         “A Pediatrician Explains How ‘Dangerous’Equality Act Would Force Doctors to ‘Do Harm’” by Katrina Trinko for The Daily Signal 

·         “Church Expresses Support for ‘Fairness for All’Approach” from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Newsroom 

·         “GOP Settles the Score on Girls Sports” from The Family Research Council 

·         “8th Place: A High School Girl’s Life After Transgender Students Join Her Sport” by Kelsey Bolar for The Daily Signal 

·         “Sexual Ideology Indoctrination: The Equality Act’s Impact on School Curriculum and Parental Rights” from The Heritage Foundation 

A piece I’ve recommended before, that gives some background on the history of SOGI ideas suddenly becoming mainstream, is this one:

·         “Ten Years of International Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Laws: Lessons Learned” by Daniel Moody for The Witherspoon Institute 

In addition to Ryan T. Anderson’s book When Harry Met Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, he wrote this shorter piece last year: 

·         “Sex Change: Physically Impossible, Psychosocially Unhelpful, and Philosophically Misguided” by Ryan T. Anderson for The Witherspoon Institute

As the pigs say in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Special rights for some mean unequal rights for all. That’s what HR 5 does while distorting beyond recognition the very word equality.

Modern-day Parable

 Sometimes a story is the best way to convey an idea. So, today, let's try a modern-day parable.

A young teen, age 14, goes to her parents and says, “I never want to have children. I need to get a hysterectomy to make sure I never can.”

image from here

The parents are heartsick. Why would their beloved daughter have this strange view? Where had they gone wrong as parents? And will this mean they never even experience the joy of grandchildren? 

And they feel tremendous concern for the daughter’s wellbeing. Are the long-term consequences of such a surgery even known for a woman so young?

They say to her, “Let’s wait on this for a while. You might change your mind. This isn’t something you should decide now, when you’re not even old enough to be ready to have a baby. And there will be other effects, hormonal and physiological, that will affect your overall health.”

“I want it. I want it. I want it! And you can’t stop me. And you have to pay for it!” says their little darling.

Unfortunately, the family lives in a world that doesn’t recognize the right of parents to see to the care and upbringing of their child. Plus, this surrounding milieu has a knee-jerk reaction favoring a philosophy that is pro-sex without consequence. Getting rid of the possibility of procreation suits that agenda.

The girl goes to a counselor at school, who puts her in touch with a doctor willing to do the surgery. When the parents object, this connection of authorities intervenes and takes the girl from the home—for her protection.

The parents are powerless to protect their child. Their insurance refuses to pay, since the surgery is elective, as well as controversial. But the parents nevertheless are forced to pay; the sizable sum is automatically deducted from their bank account.

After the surgery and convalescence, plus a few months, the girl decides she’d rather be at home in her own room than dealing with foster parents. Her heartsick but still loving parents welcome her back home.

She finishes high school. Struggles through college. And then works a series of jobs. She gets close to marriage, but her purposeful choice to never have children gets in the way, multiple times, when she would have liked a more permanent relationship. Temporary relationships with men who want sex without responsibility are plentiful—but strangely unsatisfying.

In her 30s, while friends are marrying and having children, or sharing their angst over the ticking clock of their chance to have a family, she has frequent regrets. She doesn’t feel the same way about things that she did at age 14—although she never admits these regrets to her parents.

She spends the rest of her erstwhile childbearing years taking hormones to make up for the organs that were removed. She ages more quickly than she would have liked. Eventually, she needs additional surgery to handle the displacement caused by the hysterectomy. These are health problems she would not be having, if she hadn’t acted rashly—and if society hadn’t facilitated her rashness—several decades earlier.

To my knowledge, such a scenario hasn’t actually taken place. But our world is showing signs of being that warped. On another issue it is that warped.

If a child, who cannot take a prescription without a parent’s consent, or get ears pierced, or get a tattoo even with consent, decides to be the opposite gender from reality, what sane parent wouldn’t be concerned? 

A sex change means mutilation, disfigurement, and permanent sterility. And sex change does not mean overcoming the gender dysphoria. It doesn’t decrease tendency to suicide. It does nothing real. But it pretends to change the world to go along with a delusion—a delusion that can be treated and often resolves on its own without physiological intervention.

It seems to me that a thoughtful parent would want to get mental healthcare for the child. But the world has made it practically illegal for a therapist to deal with the underlying issues; only positive, enthusiastic affirmation of the erroneous belief is allowed. So the parent can’t turn there.

And authorities are stepping in.

There’s a story from the UK, showing that government has begun taking kids away from parents who don’t want to go along with gender “transitions.” 

Commenting on this situation, blogger Jonathon Van Maren says: 

As the numbers of children identifying as transgender soar, parents have often been left at a loss as children have been swept away by what some experts are referring to as a social contagion. Numbers in the United Kingdom have now risen by over 4,000 percent, prompting a government investigation and urgent warnings from health experts, while the number of young people being referred to the National Health Service for gender reassignment has risen by 1,000 percent. Many parents feel that their child’s struggles may have nothing to do with gender dysphoria, but feel powerless to object as transgenderism is trendy and anything but full-hearted support for hormone treatments and life-altering surgeries is condemned by activists as hateful bigotry.

My guess is that this “trend” will look strange indeed as we look back half a century ahead. Van Maren notes that officials claim the issue is complex, and children aren’t removed simply because they are transgender. But…

You’ll notice that the wording here carefully says that a child being transgender doesn’t get them pulled from the home—but preventing transition could very well do so, especially now that LGBT activists are claiming that anything but vociferous affirmation of the desire to transition is harm.

Another story from the UK tells of parents of a 14-year-old, who temporarily lost custody of their son because they hesitated to support his taking irreversible hormone blockers. They believed his gender dysphoria was related to his Aspergers, and that therapy should be tried first, before irreversible damage could be done.

It is a sign of the craziness of our world that government officials step in—not to protect a child from irreversible damage that deranged parents want to impose, but to overrule caring, protective parents in order to impose the irreversible damage.

Lest you think we’re safe here in America, further in the story, they mention the Texas dad, Jeffrey Younger, of a 6-year-old whose ex-wife is transitioning the son into a girl, against the will of the dad, against the will of the son as expressed to the dad when the mother is absent, and the dad is being threatened with loss of his child if he doesn’t go along. Regardless will be forced to pay for it. 

Younger says,

I want you to imagine having electronic communication with your son on FaceTime, and imagine that your ex-wife has dressed him as a drag queen to talk to you. He has false eyelashes and makeup. His hair has got glitter in it. He’s wearing a dress.

Now imagine how you would feel seeing what I believe is actual sexual abuse—I believe this is not just emotional abuse but is the very, most fundamental form of sexual abuse, tampering with the sexual identity of a vulnerable boy.

Jeffrey Younger at TX State Capitol
screenshot from video
posted on Facebook by Norma Jeter for
Concerned Women for America of Texas

I shouldn’t have to point out this obvious fact, but six-year-old girls do not wear false eyelashes and makeup unless it’s Halloween, or maybe a misguided princess pageant. And these days girls seldom wear dresses, except for church or special occasions. In a typical first grade classroom you might not see any dresses worn as regular daywear. If someone were helping this boy “be” a girl, shouldn’t that be a normal girl in normal girl attire?

I think the father is right; his ex-wife is abusing this child. Getting him away from her, and getting him some therapy to recover from the confusing abuse, would likely lead him to a normal life—most likely as the boy he was born to be.[i]

This dad spoke recently at the Texas State Capitol. His story is heart-wrenching. We’re fighting multiple attacks from SOGI (sexual identity and gender identity)[ii] laws in the current legislative session.

Meanwhile, right here in Houston, the public library recently admitted they had hired a convicted sex offender to read to children—because somebody had an agenda to push transgenderism by having drag queens read to small children. And that agenda was so overridingly important that they failed to do a background check on the multiple drag queens they hired. 

Is there a way to fight the craziness? I’m not sure. But standing up to it is a start.

screenshot from here

In Pennsylvania, a female HS student has filed a lawsuit claiming her rights were violated when she had to suffer a male (transgender) watching her change clothes in the school locker room.

Her attorney, Andrea Shaw, makes this argument:

Opening up restrooms and locker rooms to members of the opposite sex is sexual harassment. Like most forms of sexual harassment, the girls in this school have little power over their situation. The school's only solution for my client was for her to wait outside the locker room until the individual of the opposite sex was finished changing, and then she went in and was late for gym class and also late for her second period class.

The school made the young girl out to be the problem. Shaw adds,

Women have fought long and hard for privacy rights under Title IX, for equality, for equal access in education. And now we are telling these girls that they no longer have a voice. The privacy rights of these girls don’t change based on what a male believes about their gender; their privacy rights belong to them. And it is the school’s duty to protect those girls’ privacy rights.

It seems to be a clash between world views. But only one view is in touch with reality. That’s the one that’s likely to prevail. Truth has an inexorable weight that enforced pretense can’t overcome for long.

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[i]  There's a Save James website, here: https://savejames.com/all-about-james/   

[i] A good piece to understand SOGI laws is “Ten Years of International Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Laws: Lessons Learned” by Daniel Moody: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/03/18897/.

SOGI Laws Discriminate Against Religious People

The acronym SOGI stands for sexual orientation and gender identity. There’s a movement—going on now for over a decade—making its way through international NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and into societies.

Yogyakarta Principles logo

Back in 2006, November, there was a four-day conference in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The purpose was to draft a set of statements connecting human rights concepts with new ideas concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. A few months later their 29 statements were revealed at a UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: The Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

If it seems like these ideas have rather suddenly appeared practically everywhere you look, that’s been intentional. They put their fingers into education, religion, health, housing, business—practically everywhere. If your ideas have changed since 2007—or, more likely, you’re noticing changes in the views of people around you, maybe especially millennials and younger—that has been the purposeful manipulation of language and society from these Yogyakarta Principles, which have, as Daniel Moody put it in a 2017 piece,

throbbed away in the background, shaping the terms of legal debate more by association and insinuation than by formal adoption, with the ideas therein gradually becoming the loudest voice in the conversation.

In short, the change in views isn’t organic; it’s been inculcated. It’s not about research or enlightenment; it’s about indoctrination. And it isn’t about changing hearts to lead to greater equity, but binding laws coercing behavior regardless of sovereignty; it’s about power.

Without the infiltration of these ideas into our society, would the US Supreme Court have ruled to redefine marriage in 2015 in Obergefell? Probably not. The questions brought up at that time—about the harm to religious people who would still hold to the millennia-old definition of marriage—were acknowledged by Justice Kennedy, but were ignored with no more than a shrug of the shoulders.

Since then, people are literally persecuted—bullied, publicly shamed, prosecuted, put out of business—for holding to the fact that marriage is about the permanent commitment of a man and a woman for the sake of possible offspring.

As Ryan Anderson, author of Truth Overruled, says, “SOGI laws imperil religious liberty, privacy, economic freedom, and child welfare, creating more problems than they aim to resolve. They are a solution in search of a problem.” https://www.dailysignal.com/2015/07/23/how-so-called-equality-act-threatens-religious-freedom/

Texas Legislature Online home page

We’re not immune, even here in the free state of Texas. During this legislative session we’re facing a number of SOGI bills, attempting to codify discrimination against religious people, but disguised as “anti-discrimination” bills. If you’re in Texas, these are bills to oppose; outside of Texas, watch for these ideas to show up in your laws:

·         SB 153 (and companion bill HB 978) requires gender-neutral language in marriage licensing.

·         SB 151 (and companion bill HB 244, as well as similar bill HB 254) is a general SOGI bill; it prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. It includes a $100 per day fine for any violation.

·         HB 850 prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression, without regard to what the employer does and what image that employer wants to present to the public, and it includes Christian-owned or other religiously led businesses.

·         HB 188 prohibits housing discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. That means that religious colleges and universities can be forced to allow biological males to sleep next to women in dormitories. Same for religious homeless shelters for abused women.

·         HB 517 (and duplicate HB 1190) prohibits counseling related to sexual orientation or gender identity of a child—unless it is to encourage homosexuality or transitioning as the treatment for gender dysphoria. In other words, it allows only the SOGI-preferred type of counseling and criminalizes anything else—even when the patient wants other counsel. Even providing overwhelming science and research that refutes the pro-LGBT views would be illegal to provide.

·         SB 154 (and companion HB 1835) forces doctors to change vital records, against conscience, concerning name and sex changes.

·         SJR 9 (and companion HJR 64) attempts to repeal the Texas Code definition of marriage as one man and one woman—ignoring the will of the people of Texas to align with the five Supreme Court justices who extra-constitutionally imposed a new definition on us.

It’s still early in the legislative session, but so far these SOGI bills are not progressing. Senate bills have been assigned to committees (to State Affairs), but only a few House bills have been assigned to their various committees.

Meanwhile, there are some bills intended to prevent damage to religion freedom. If you believe in the God-given First Amendment right of freedom of religion, these are bills to support:

·         HB 1035, the “Free to Believe Act,” is intended to protect freedom of conscience from government discrimination. This would protect from most of the bills we’re against, because all those try to wield government power against religious believers.

·         SB 85 is intended to protect counselors who refuse to provide services against their beliefs.

·         HB 2109 grants the right of recusal from performing marriage ceremonies that go against the official’s religious beliefs.

Only the Senate bill has been assigned to committee. Committee assignment is done mostly in order filed, so higher numbers will take longer. That means we don’t know how they’ll do once they get debated.

At any point, it’s worth contacting your state representative and state senator, to let them know your views on these issues, and to encourage them to sign on as co-authors or co-sponsors to bills you support. Once the bills are in committee, then contacting committee members is worth doing. You can follow all of these bills on the Texas Legislature Online site. I’ve linked the bills to that site. You can also go there directly: capitol.texas.gov. 

If having the freedom to believe what you believe is important to you, and you don’t want that taken from you because of some international NGO agenda, then this is a time to stand up and use your voice.

On the Side of Reason and Science

In Canada, the courts ruled that protecting the wishes of LGBT people is more important than protecting the inalienable God-given right to religious freedom. 

Trinity Western University
image from here

It was about accreditation of a Christian university, Trinity Western University, which has students sign an honor code that they will not have sex outside of marriage. (The Christian university I attended, BYU, here in the US has that in its honor code.)  And they define marriage as between a man and a woman. So, homosexuals who aren’t married are treated the same as heterosexuals who aren’t married. It’s unclear whether any “married” same-sex couples wanted to attend the Christian school but felt excluded by that honor code.

Lower courts supported the school’s right to set its behavior code according to the religious beliefs of the institution. But the high court disagreed. Here’s how the high court stated its reasoning:

"The [law society of British Columbia, which denied the accreditation] has an overarching interest in protecting the values of equality and human rights in carrying out its functions. Approving or facilitating inequitable barriers to the profession could undermine public confidence in the (law society's) ability to regulate in the public interest."

Meanwhile, remember Jack Phillips, the cake baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, whose case went to the Supreme Court? Even though SCOTUS ruled in his favor, the state of Colorado is after him again. This time it’s for refusing to make a cake celebrating a person’s “transition” from male to female. 

Jack Phillips
screen shot from here

The first ruling was narrow—about the state’s stated prejudice against him for his religion, quite specifically. So, they’re at it again, and this time claiming it’s about him discriminating against a person. Granted, that’s what they said the last time. He didn’t actually discriminate against anyone; all comers could buy what he was willing to sell. But he was unwilling to make and sell a product that celebrated something against his religious beliefs. This was in character for him; he also refused to make Halloween-themed products and a variety of other messages he found offensive.

So, the Supreme Court spent an inordinate amount of time talking about what was a cake  and what was a message. It was twisting what he was doing to be about the people—whom he served in every other way—instead of about the message. A cake that celebrates a same-sex “wedding” is not the same thing as a cake that celebrates a traditional, real wedding. It was always about the event.

So how are things different this time? The Court says he’s discriminating against people. As First Assistant Attorney General LeeAnn Morrill said in court: "If you make product 1 for customer 1, you must make product 1 for customer 2."

But Jack Phillips didn’t refuse to serve the customer, who was transgendered; he would have sold any product on hand, or products for other purposes. He only refused the particular request for a cake that celebrated changing genders. Again, a cake celebrating a birthday or a graduation is not the same as a cake celebrating what can be seen, quite literally, as body mutilation.

In other words, the state is attacking Jack Phillips again for his religious beliefs. The only difference might be if they refrain more carefully from saying so.

In both of these cases, there’s an assumption being pushed on society, using the courts as well as media, to insist that religious freedom is a “license to discriminate.” 

But when you get the emotional hand-wringing out of the way, the discrimination is decidedly against religious people. And activists for the LGBT etc. group are not looking for equality; they are looking for special prominence, promotion, and power.

A few months back, Tucker Carlson interviewed a woman who was pressing for parents to stop having boy or girl babies, and just have “theybies,” non-gendered until the child is four years old or so when the child then decides what it is. Carlson says, “We acknowledge biology and nature as real. Right?” The woman doesn’t actually respond to reality; she just keeps insisting it’s irrelevant: “It’s just a little human.”

Tucker Carlson (left)
screenshot from here

Yes, it is a little human. But humans, as other species of mammals, come in two sexes, biologically determined. Maybe the reason (and let’s use that word in its full sense) the woman looks foolish is because she denies reality and claims that will make society better.

In all these cases, someone is denying science and nature. And the side recognizing the common sense of science and nature is being vilified as bigoted. Those claiming to ask for “fairness for all,” through SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) laws penalize people who believe in biology—and common sense.

And, let's be clear, religious believers are on the side of science and reason.

Off-Year Election

There was an election Tuesday. This is an off year. That means lower turnout and less interest, generally, than a presidential election year, or even the every-two-year congressional elections. Texas had no statewide races. There were seven statewide ballot propositions—they all passed. Still, I think there are things we can learn from looking at this voting day.

Son Political Sphere worked as our Presiding Judge in our precinct. We had an Alternate Judge from the opposite party, and I joined as a clerk at noon through the rest of the day. We were entitled to hire several more clerks, but I thought there was a good chance we were overstaffed with just us three. Based on what I’d seen in past off years, I estimated we’d have maybe as many as 150 voters for the full day. In 2013 we had 113 on Election Day, which was slightly higher than surrounding precincts.

I expected spare time between voters to maybe finish reading a book. But I was wrong. We had a steady stream of voters all day long. The only times there was much of a line were at the 7:00 AM opening (people wanting to vote before heading to work) and around 5:00. I don’t know why it would be higher at 5:00 than nearer to closing. But it continued steady up through closing. We ended with more than double my estimate. That is in addition to the two weeks of early voting.

Harris County overall had a turnout of 26.9%, higher than any off year since 2003. Typical is between18-19%.

Unlike the City of Houston, we had nothing all that compelling on our ballot, just propositions and school board trustees. So why the heavy turnout?

We can’t say for certain, but a clue comes from voters’ questions:

Q: So, we don’t vote for the mayor? We don’t vote on the Houston issues?

A: No, we’re just outside the City of Houston, so we don’t vote on that.

This question came up all day long. In an ideal world people have prepared to vote. They’d have looked up their sample ballot and schooled themselves on the issues and candidates. And they would have noticed that they haven’t been paying the higher taxes of the city.

But in a less than ideal world, the voters go by what they’ve been hearing on the news and elsewhere. And the big issue this election was the HERO proposition in Houston. That’s the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or, as it came to be called, The Bathroom Ordinance.

          photo from David Bro/Zuma Press/Newscom,found here

The ordinance itself, as others like it in other cities and states, doesn’t actually protect rights equally, as claimed. It adds burdens on society to make special allowances for certain classes. Controversially, these included the classifications of sexual orientation and gender identity. In other words, if a person in one of these special classes comes into your business and wants their special treatment, you’re subject to a lawsuit, leading to fines, jail terms, damages, etc., if you don’t grant them their special status.

There wasn’t a bigotry problem in Houston. There are essentially no cases in which people in these classes have been deprived of rights. They claim to guarantee things like city government and large corporations offering spousal benefits for same-sex couples (the same as they do for non-married heterosexual couples, by the way). The market has already provided the solution, without any government coercion needed.

But such an ordinance would go further, leading to more wedding services being sued, not for turning down service to homosexuals, but for turning down service to a wedding that goes against their religion. This danger is real and becoming more common. The HERO ordinance would have caused more coercion, not more protection of rights.

But where did it get the name The Bathroom Ordinance? The ordinance goes out of its way to accommodate transgendered individuals. That means, if a male person claims to “feel like” a woman on a given day, he must be allowed in women’s restrooms and locker rooms, or else the building owner or business is in violation of the law.

The problem comes when women object to having men in their private areas. These women are not reassured that they are safe from intrusion or rape or other danger; they are told they are in violation of the law. They are at fault for objecting to men watching them undress.

This is particularly alarming because there is no objective measure of whether a transgendered person qualifies to be an opposite gender—nothing but their personal say so. Not even their dress or appearance is required. So there is no way for women, or girls, to express their discomfort. They have no recourse but to suffer the danger. Knowing this, any male pervert could go into a woman’s restroom or dressing room and prey upon victims, and unless caught in the act of attack would have the defense that they “feel like” a woman that day.

The mayor and others pushing this through could have addressed this very reasonable concern. They chose instead to say that every person who felt uncomfortable with this danger was a bigot. Every man who waits outside the women’s restroom while his daughter uses the facilities would have no recourse if a six-foot-four burly bearded man followed his daughter into that restroom; he just gets branded a bigot.

Would the problem have been widespread? Probably not. Transgenders are an extremely small segment of society, and so are perverts. But that would be no reassurance to women whose sense of safety is ignored.

Also, suppose the law passed and affected schools. Suppose the rule says that any high school student can use the locker room that they feel suits them. Do you imagine that there will be any high school that does not experience some young man, dared by his buddies, to pretend to be transgendered to go into the girls locker room—because the schools can do nothing as long as he says he “feels like” a girl that day—will there be any high school that doesn’t have this privacy invasion? The law invites it. And the very fact that reasonable people see the result coming is met with, “You’re such a bigot!”

Well, it turns out that, even in the liberal City of Houston, the HERO proposition failed 61% to 39%. And people turned out in numbers we haven’t seen in more than a decade.

The claim that Houstonians are a bunch of homophobic bigots falls flat when you realize they elected lesbian Mayor Anise Parker three times (2-year terms; she is now term-limited out). In return for their tolerance, the Mayor pushed this ordinance through the City Council, against the will of the people.

The people responded by gathering tens of thousands of signatures to put repealing the ordinance on the ballot. Mayor Parker illegally threw out the signatures—and was slapped down by the state Supreme Court. She required the sermons and communications of local churches to go on a search for wording about homosexuality that she might not approve of—and was slapped down by the public outcry and the state Supreme Court. She also tried confusing wording on the ballot, but the Court slapped her for that as well and foiled that ploy.

She’s been slapped down again by this vote. But, while disappointed, she’s not defeated. The plan is to go forward, pushing the requirements of the ordinance through regulatory agencies, so it will find a back door into law, without any say by the people. Because she has no respect for the voice of the people. Elites are like that. And the pro-LGBT activists are among the most intolerant elites in our society today.

The HERO ordinance is similar to laws being promulgated across the country. They are referred to as ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) at the federal level, or generally as SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) laws. They are problematic, and pretty much never helpful. For example:

One case pitted a transgender employee with male DNA who sued after being denied permission to use the ladies’ restroom, a denial that resulted from complaints filed by female employees. The employer lost in the Minnesota Court of Appeals, but then prevailed in the Minnesota Supreme Court. Another case involved a male-looking person who sued and obtained a substantial settlement after being ejected from the ladies’ room in response to complaints by a female customer who that a man had just invaded the ladies’ room.[i]

It’s a no-win situation for the business owner, who must ignore the valid complaints of employees, including complaints about an intimidating or unsafe workplace, or valid complaints of customers who would rather not share changing rooms or restrooms with the opposite sex.

ENDA and SOGI laws have negatively affected employer speech. A Seattle business owner was charged for playing Christian radio in his workplace, a station where he advertised his business, because a homosexual employee complained this created a hostile work environment.[ii]

As Ryan Anderson says, “SOGI laws imperil religious liberty, privacy, economic freedom, and child welfare, creating more problems than they aim to resolve. They are a solution in search of a problem.”

Anderson said this in response to Tuesday’s election results, 

Don’t let the media demagogue and attack the people of Houston. Citizens there voted three times to elect Annise Parker, a lesbian, as mayor. They’re a tolerant city. But they drew the line when the city council voted to create special privileges based on sexual orientation and gender identity that could have been used to shutter faith-based adoption agencies; penalize florists, photographers, and bakers; and force businesses to allow biological males who identify as women into women’s restrooms and changing rooms.

Citizens in Houston organized against the city council and collected more than enough signatures required to put the issue to a vote of the people. But the mayor claimed that the majority of signatures were invalid and refused to put the issue on the ballot. Then she subpoenaed the sermons of five prominent pastors who helped lead the charge against the measure. After a public outcry, the mayor relented on the sermons, and a unanimous state Supreme Court said the signatures were valid and the citizens had to vote on the measure.

And the citizens won.

Matt Walsh wrote about a school in Illinois that is facing the wrath of SOGI laws. He makes the point that the homosexual/transgender lobby can never be appeased.

This Illinois case is incredible considering how far the school district went to accommodate the deluded young man. Administrators first changed the pronouns on official school records to reflect whatever sex the “transgender” is pretending to be. That wasn’t enough. They allowed boys to play on girl sports teams, needlessly endangering safety and providing an unfair advantage to the team with the cross dressing male. That wasn’t enough. They let “transgenders” use the bathrooms of their choice. That wasn’t enough. They even let the boy use the girl’s locker room. The only stipulation — the only attempt they made to offer the real girls some shred of privacy and decency — was to ask the boy to change and shower behind privacy curtains, which they had specially installed for him. That wasn’t enough.

The school, like most schools in the country, bent over backwards to grant enormous and unreasonable favors to a small and demanding branch of an already tiny demographic. They made girls give up their sport’s teams, their bathrooms, and most of their privacy in the locker room, but the one single concession they asked of the boy was that he use a curtain. It still was not enough. It is never enough.

It is not about tolerance. This lobbying force does not want to settle for tolerance, which they have had. And they certainly do not want to tolerate any difference of opinion. They want supreme control. Which leaves those who love freedom, prosperity, and civilization with the necessity of resistance and constant vigilance.

But the good thing about this election is, it shows that when people are made aware of the stakes, they vote in strength.

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[i] Hans Bader, “Employment Non-Discrimination Act Makes as Little Sense as Chemotherapy for a Cold,” Open Market (blog), Competitive Enterprise Institute, June 13, 2012, http://www.openmarket.org/2012/06/13/employment-non-discrimination-act-makes-as-little-sense-as-chemotherapy-for-a-cold/ . This reference is included in Ryan T. Anderson, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom, digital location 2209.

[ii] Walter Olson, The Excuse Factory: How Employment Law Is Paralyzing America (New York: Free Press, 1997), 250. This is mentioned in Anderson’s book at digital location 2261.