Is Some Better Than None?

There is a trend around the country where some rights are better than none or another way to look at it is a half a glass better than a full glass. I can see the reasoning behind that thought but I don’t agree with it.

In Massachusetts, Utah, and other states nondiscrimination laws has been or are being passed without public accommodation or with overly broad religious exemptions are they better than no laws?

I know that in Massachusetts many of their victories has been by their human rights commission or by the courts and many of those rulings was based on the fact the legislature never outright exempted trans people from sex discrimination. Well now they have, when they passed the gender inclusive nondiscrimination law they exempted public accommodation and no one knows how the courts will now look at public accommodations. Will they continue to rule in our favor or will the courts now say we are not covered because the legislature has spoken?

In Utah the proposed legislation says,

"This chapter may not be interpreted to prohibit an employer from adopting reasonable rules and policies that designate sex-specific facilities, including restrooms, shower facilities, and dressing facilities, provided that the employer's rules and policies adopted under this section afford reasonable accommodations based on gender identity to all employees."

It seems to give an awful lot of wiggle room for employers to make us use the janitor's bathroom or the bathroom on the third floor all the way down the hall. How do you define “reasonable accommodations?”

In Florida they are trying to pass that awful bill that will make it crime to go the bathroom, while in Plano Texas they are attempting a pass a law that will not only exempt restrooms from the ordinance and but also non-profits and school. The Texas Observer wrote that,

But the Plano ordinance also quickly came under intense fire from transgender activists. Nell Gaither, president of Dallas-based Trans Pride Initiative, has posted blistering attacks on social media saying exemptions in the ordinance amount to bigotry and accusing other LGBT groups of signing off on them.

“This is not a Plano issue. This is a Texas issue, and more,” Gaither wrote recently. “If they get away with the lie that this is an LGBT equality policy it will set a dangerous precedent that will be very difficult to overcome for many, many years.”

This week, Trans Pride Initiative released an eight-page position paper criticizing exemptions in the ordinance related to not only restrooms, but also nonprofits and schools. The position paper says the exemptions run counter to federal laws and may ultimately promote violence and harassment against transgender people, suggesting it would be better to simply allow the ordinance to be repealed and start from scratch.

So is half a loaf better than a whole loaf, I don’t think so because it is easier to pass a clean bill then going back and trying to add public accommodation to the bill.