Saturday, June 28, 2008

Congressional Hearing On Gender - Follow-up

The videos of the hearing are now on YouTube, there are a total of eight videos of the hearing. In addition, the opposition is posting their responses on their blogs, it is interesting to note that the minority party did not bring up any of these issues during the hearing, maybe because the right wing conservatives do not want to go on record with their views.
Here is some of what they are saying…

Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays:
“Homosexuals and their transgender activist allies hope to use this hearing as a way of forcing the imposition of gender confusion upon all Americans,” said Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) Executive Director Regina Griggs today. “Instead of treating transsexualism and cross-dressing behaviors as Gender Identity Disorders (GID) as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Democrats seem determined to make these behaviors into federally-protected minorities.”

“Why should Congress force Americans to provide workplace accommodations for people who are confused about whether they’re male or female? How can Congress force us to make believe that a man is really a woman or a woman is really a man?”

One News Now
Peter LaBarbera is president of the conservative group Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. "This appears to me as if the homosexual lobby is throwing a bone to the transgender activists," he argues. "They dropped the transgender movement as part of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and yet they still have to show their support for this radical movement, which we believe is all about mainstreaming gender confusion," LaBarbera contends.

According to LaBarbera, the transgender movement poses a problem for the "gay" movement because when most people see "big bulky men in dresses" they immediately "recoil." He says he never thought he would see the day when there would be so many powerful forces on Capitol Hill pushing for the "stepchild of gay rights" – civil rights based on gender confusion.

"What Americans have to realize is that, if you get the federal government behind this perversion of civil rights, it will have a cascading effect throughout the whole American society," LaBarbera explains. "Small businesses could be forced to hire people embracing gender confusion. You have people in jobs that face the public such as a maitre d' in a restaurant – a man decides that he is really a woman and he is going to start dressing as a woman." Essential, says the family advocate, it could "circumscribe the ability of an employer to not have a gender-confused person in the face of the public."

Sexual deviancy advocacy groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force -- as well as the American Civil Liberties Union -- have reportedly been meeting regularly to coordinate a strategy for today's hearing.

Traditional Values Coalition
“Why is the House of Representatives wasting taxpayer dollars to discuss whether or not drag queens or she-males are offended because of their cross-dressing or sexual behaviors in a business environment? I already know the answer: Because liberals like Robert Andrews are aggressively promoting the normalization of cross-dressing and transsexualism in our culture,” said Lafferty [TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty.]

Concerned Women for America(CWA)
"This hearing appears to be a step toward passing legal restrictions against identifying men as men, and women as women," said Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA). "'Gender identity' is a fluid term that is difficult to nail down. On top of that, advocates want to restrict the 'perception' of gender identity.
The conservative religious right talks about a “Homosexual Agenda” well they have their own agenda and they have used the same argument every time there is a change in social justice, be it ending slavery, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement and now the gay and trans rights movement. That it is against the natural order of things and they do it by demonizing and using inflammatory language.

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The videos of the hearing are posted here on the NCTE YouTube site. The one with the questioning by the Rep. Andrew, the Chairman of Mr. Lavy about religious exemptions is this one and is about five minutes into the clip, right after Mr. Minte testimony.

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