The equal rights fight over Houston's bathrooms https://t.co/PNKAPDvL6Z (via @NYTOpinion)
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 27, 2015
HOUSTON — Houston likes to call itself the city of the future. This is, after all, the nation’s fourth-largest metropolis and one of its most diverse. We have a lesbian mayor, twice re-elected. Oil is in a temporary slump, yes, but skyscrapers and luxury condos are still rising all over town. World-class architects are gussying up our parks and museums. But our super-sophisticated self-conception is now endangered, thanks to months of strife that have led to Proposition 1’s appearance on the Nov. 3 ballot, a measure also known as the “bathroom ordinance.”…. Back in a simpler time, in 2013, that rule was called the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO. It is designed to protect the populace from discrimination in housing, employment and just about everything else, on just about any basis: race, age, pregnancy, religion, ethnicity, military status, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Having lived in the Houston area for 10+ years, I think I can speak to this subject with a depth and breadth of knowledge and experience not shared by many outside the Bayou City. My antipathy for Houston isn’t something I generally hide, but it’s not as if I don’t care about the people. I still have friends in Houston, and while it’s not for me, it’s home for them.
The heat, the humidity, the gargantuan size, the refineries, the tropical storms, the rampant hyper-religious Conservative homophobia- all these things and more left me convinced I needed to leave and return to a place more reflective of my values. Over the past decade, though, I’ve watched Houston- which can have a surprisingly Liberal bent- elect and re-elect this country’s first openly lesbian big-city mayor. I’ve seen a city that, at least in political terms, can be rather schizophrenic, attempt to scratch and claw its way into the reality-based world.
Then came the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), and the controversy Conservatives have ginned up has convinced me all over again that leaving Houston was the right choice.
Most cities have long had equal rights ordinances of some flavor for years. In these places, the idea of treating people with dignity and respect is de riguer, a non-controversial idea hardly worth exercising brain cells over. Yet in Houston there’s still a cabal of Far-right “Christians” who’ve someone managed not to internalize their Lord and Savior’s message of love, tolerance, acceptance, and compassion. If these folks are Christians I’m the Queen of Denmark.
In most cases, equal rights ordinances are popular because they make it easier for a city’s business community to recruit and retain talent. If people know they will have the same access to the same pie anyone else does, they can move to a place knowing that they can be who they are without fear of discrimination. Those who oppose HERO have bypassed this argument altogether and leapt to a level of disinformation and fear-mongering that should embarrass any Christian actually endeavoring to live a Christ-like life.
Annise Parker, a Democrat who was elected as the country’s first openly gay big-city mayor in 2009, was naturally appalled that Houston lacked such a rule. In fact, it was the only major Texas city without one. Yet years of wrangling followed, and it was not until the beginning of her third and final two-year term, in April 2014, that Ms. Parker sent a proposed equal rights ordinance to the City Council for ratification. It was time, she said, “that the laws on our books reflect what Houston is.”
There was disagreement — from conservative church groups, in particular. The senior pastor of the Grace Community Church declared that his congregation “should not be forced to normalize lifestyle choices that God says ‘no’ to.”
Echoing claims made in other parts of the United States, opponents also cited public safety. Even if HERO didn’t explicitly say so, it would in theory allow transgender females to use women’s restrooms. This could offend the sensibilities of young girls, opponents claimed, or worse, allow a rapist impersonating a woman to skulk in and commit unspeakable crimes.
The Conservative “Christians” who oppose HERO aren’t arguing that guaranteeing equality is a bad thing- an argument they know they’d most assuredly lose. No, they’ve defaulted to fear-mongering, focus on portraying HERO as the “bathroom ordinance,” a mythical bogeyman which places all good and decent Houstonians at the mercy of those who would use bathrooms to pursue their sick, perverted obsessions.
WHAT ABOUT OUR POOR, PRECIOUS, VULNERABLE CHILDREN??
Those who oppose HERO have no real, credible argument…so they’ve defaulted to preying on fear, ignorance, and prejudice, something good, God-fearing Texas Christians excel at. Former Houston Astro star Lance Berkman has been visible in the anti-Hero campaign and its focus on the threat to the Bayou City’s bathrooms. It’s a specious and patently offensive argument, but it’s the propaganda the anti-HERO campaign has latched onto.
The truth is that, as 200 American cities can attest, equal rights is good for everyone. Creating an environment in which ALL are guaranteed equal treatment in opportunity, accommodations, and employment means that all people, especially those who fall within a minority class, can live and work free of fear and safe in the knowledge they can count on being treated as full and equal members of society.
That Berkman and those who think like him would take Houston in the other direction should be cause for shame…but that would presume that the haters and fear-mongers are capable of feeling shame.
Over 200 American cities have equal rights ordinances on their books…and NONE of those cities have reported an increased threat to public safety. Nor has their been confirmation of the fears that public toilet facilities would be overrun with perverts and sexual deviants looking to molest innocent women and children.
The fact is that the Nov. 3 plebiscite on HERO isn’t about public safety, public restrooms, or the safety of women and children. It’s about a small minority of Conservative “Christians” who wouldn’t recognize the teachings of their Lord and Savior they claim to worship if He showed up dressed as Joel Osteen for Halloween. It’s about hatred, homophobia, religious hypocrisy, and dishonesty. The anti-HERO crowd has to recognize on some level that their campaign has nothing to do with public safety or their bastardized, hate-addled Christian faith.
In the end, it’s about hatred and the willingness to marginalize and destroy those who live, love, and believe differently. (Not) Exactly what Jesus would do, eh??
Houston deserves better. We ALL deserve better.
