Thursday, October 15, 2015

Fear Mongers

They can only win by creating fear, they know it is not true but that doesn’t stop them from using falsehoods to create fear.
Transmissions: Take action on toilets
Bay Area Reporter
Published 10/15/2015
By Gwendolyn Ann Smith

In Houston, Proposition 1 seeks a veto referendum on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, aka HERO. The ordinance would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, just as HERO already had. It would also make explicit coverage for sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, genetic information and pregnancy, on par with federal law.

In the fight against HERO, as well as Proposition 1, the issue of public access for transgender people has taken center stage, with graphics speaking out about men in women's bathrooms, and critics seeking to call the ordinance the "Sexual Predator Protection Act."
[…]
This has not stopped the group Campaign For Houston from publishing statements like this on its website. "Campaign for Houston is made up of parents and family members who do not want their daughters, sisters, or mothers forced to share restrooms in public facilities with gender-confused men, who – under this ordinance – can call themselves 'women' on a whim and use women's restrooms whenever they wish. This 'bathroom ordinance,' therefore, is an attempt to re-structure society to fit a societal vision we simply do not share or can support."

I want to draw attention to some slanted language in the above. This notion of "on a whim," as it if were so easy, is specious. So is stating that those who would opt to do so are "gender confused." It is not us, apparently, who are so confused. At least, in that statement, they did not try to call transgender people sexual predators.
Ms. Smith goes on to write about the similarities in the use of fear in Wisconsin where two Republican legislators have introduced a bill to force bathroom police to check birth certificates.

These fear tactics haven’t worked before and let’s hope that it doesn’t work now.

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