It Should Never Put To A Referendum.

Human rights shouldn’t be voted on. It should not be put to a referendum. However, in Huston they are doing that.

HAT THE ANTI-HERO BACKLASH HAS DONE TO TRANSGENDER HOUSTONIANS
Huston Press
By Meagan Flynn
October 30, 2015

All Celeste could do was roll her eyes when the woman she had just seen in the bathroom stood at the podium before City Council and described her as a sexual predator. Earlier, she had waited as long as she could to get up and pee, waiting until she was certain no one protesting the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO as it's commonly known, would be policing the bathroom door like a high school hall monitor. But when Celeste got out of the stall to wash her hands, one of those protesters looked at her horrified, saying, “You shouldn’t be in here.”

A half hour later, that woman was telling City Council she feared for her safety, as if Celeste, a transgender woman just washing her hands at a bathroom sink, was somehow a threatening presence. Celeste (who, fearing backlash from anti-HERO protestors, asked that the Houston Press not use her real name) thought, Are you kidding me?
[…]
By July 2015, a legal challenge by HERO opponents, including a number of religious leaders, had landed at the Texas Supreme Court, which ordered Houston to repeal the law or put it to the voters this November. All the while, the opposition somehow turned an equal rights ordinance into an argument about whether HERO would open the door for male predators, dressed as women, to enter women’s restrooms and sexually assault young girls. One woman said in the first anti-HERO radio ad that she might have to move away from Houston if she wanted to have a baby girl here, fearing the child could one day be assaulted in a bathroom.

They call themselves Christians, but they lie and bear false witness to create fear.

What it will boil down to this Tuesday is who can rally their supporters to get out in vote; human rights should not be a victim of apathy. In an off year election voter turnout is notoriously low; even though polls give a slight edge in favor of the ordinance winning is not assured. KHOU reported that,

The fight over Houston’s controversial equal rights ordinance seems close, but its supporters have the edge in the latest poll conducted for KHOU 11 News and News 88-7.

The survey indicates 43 percent of likely voters plan to vote for the ordinance nicknamed HERO and 37 percent plan to vote against it, with 18 percent still undecided.  When you factor in the 4.1 percent margin of error, it seems either side could win.

The Bill of Rights was created because the framers of the Constitution knew that the majority can and will oppress the rights of the minority. That the bigotry and hatred of the many has to be stopped and they created the Bill of Rights and overtime legislatures have expanded protection to other marginalized peoples.