This list of protected characteristics included race, color, ethnicity, sex, national origin, age, familial and marital status, military status, religion, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity.
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Democratic Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who is gay, and other supporters of the ordinance had called this “bathroom ordinance” strategy highly misleading and a scare tactic. At 12:30 a.m. EST, the tally was 61 percent opposed, 39 percent in favor with 95 percent of precincts reporting, as ABC13 noted.
Hillary Clinton tweeted her support for the ordinance on October 29, writing: “No one should face discrimination for who they are or who they love I support efforts for Equality in Houston & beyond”. Both sides poured millions of dollars into the campaign, but it appeared to be the transgender issue that propelled the opponents to victory.
The “Houston Equal Rights Ordinance” would have banned discrimination on a number of fronts, but the most controversial was the fact it would have allowed men who represent themselves as women to enter and use women’s restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities in the city.
Patrick says supporters of the proposal – including Houston Mayor Annise Parker – were “out of touch with the people of Houston” to even consider placing such a proposal on Tuesday’s ballot.
That recasting – that control of the message on a budget that dwarfed that spent by gay groups – was so effective that, as so many in Houston and outside reporters have told us, many average people interviewed on the street thought the bill was all about allowing “men” to use women’s rest rooms. Unfortunately, we’re so used to living in a go along to get along society that we began treating this nonsense as if it were gospel. They didn’t even respond in a clear way to the bathroom lie itself, running only one ad to counter it. “The amount of misinformation spread through this election will truly impact how we move forward to educate about the harms caused by discrimination, and the real people who benefit by extending legal protections for all”.
Advocates pointed out that similar ordinances exist in several hundred other American cities, including Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, and there is no evidence that transgender people have carried out sexual assaults as a result of the laws.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Republican state leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov.Dan Patrick, cited the bathroom arguments in lending their political muscle to the campaign opposing the ordinance.
Houston residents were to vote Tuesday on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance. “No one is exempt”, intoned a narrator in one TV ad that featured a young girl in a restroom. “What you see in Houston is a reaction to a national climate where Americans now have a freedom to marry”, he told me.
The opposition to the transgender agenda was rallied by pastors and celebrities, including former Houston Astros player Lance Berkman, and nationally prominent organizations such as the Family Research Council. “And I feel like it’s going the right way, that men should not go into the ladies restrooms”.
Salt Lake City has the seventh-highest LGBT population of the top 50 metro areas in the United States, with 4.7% of the population self-identifying as LGBT, according to TakePart.
The idea that a law allowing trans women to use women’s bathrooms will somehow cause a surge of men in dresses raping women in public bathrooms should be self-evidently stupid.
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“Houstonians’ religious freedom, freedom of speech, and the right to petition their government have won the day, but much more work remains to be done to safeguard these freedoms across the nation”.
