CNN projects Houston voters will reject the “Houston Equal Rights Ordinance,” a measure created to protect lesbian, gay and transgender people. Opponents said it would allow men to use women’s restroom and locker room facilities and prevent businesses from setting policies that best met their customers’ needs.
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The ordinance was originally passed by Houston City Council in 2014, but the Texas Supreme Court earlier this year forced it onto the ballot. More recently, the Obama administration and national figures including Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders voiced support for the measure.
Davis explained that people from only 16 out of Houston’s over 1,000 area congregations gathered at their churches and then met up to vote early in favor of Proposition 1.
Opponents of the ordinance, including a coalition of conservative pastors, said it infringed on their religious beliefs regarding homosexuality.
“It was about protecting our grandmoms, and our mothers and our wives and our sisters and our daughters and our granddaughters”, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, said after the vote.
It also banned discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin and other characteristics, covering jobs, housing, and in places of public accommodations.
Campaign for Houston, which fought the ordinance, said opponents included a diverse group of individuals, such as pastors from all denominations and local and state elected officials.
It was backed heavily by Houston Mayor…
After Right-wing Christian groups stoked voters’ fear with purposely misleading “bathroom” ads, citizens have rejected HERO – the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.
The law was crucial to the LGBT community in the city, as there is now no federal or state law providing workers with protection from discrimination on the grounds of sexuality – leaving HERO as the last line of defence for LGBT Houstonians.
Supporters pointed out that it was already against the law in Houston to enter a bathroom with the intent to harass someone.
First, Parker allowed the opponents to frame the issue now as one of equal rights, but as an attempt by an out of touch elite to allow male perverts free access to women’s bathrooms.
“You say I’m being political”.
“What voters are realizing is that this ordinance really just goes too far; it’s not needed”, Saenz said.
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David Cirillo, the campus leader of pro-HERO organization Houston Unites, said he believes the vote does not reflect Houston’s true values. “Too many younger people are not politically informed”. One of the Astros’ former stars, retired slugger Lance Berkman, returned to prominence in September when he appeared in an anti-Hero advertisement pushing the seemingly effective “bathroom predators” line that equal-rights activists decried as dishonest.
