(In Houston, the ordinance went so far as to punish free speech, where merely questioning someone in the bathroom who turned out to be Transgender could invoke a harassment charge and fine up to $5,000. So this was protested as creating special rights, and voted down after a court fight against the City officials who unlawfully blocked the petitions to put it to a vote, later restored by court order, which ultimately defeated the ordinance that did not fairly represent the public.)
Emily do you know the timeline on these ordinances? Reason I ask, is because of Houston's openly gay mayor and the possibility of her influence on the legislation?
Dear
Ridgerunner at this point is all in past tense. But yes, it directly influenced the NC legislation.
The Pastors in Houston went National with their fight. This battle was shared among conservative pastors, governors and party members across the states, that were already mobilized on a national level because of the gay marriage issue.
So in response to what went wrong in Houston, that's in part why NC acted preemptively to pass laws PREVENTING legislative lobbying from expanding "anti-discrimination" laws to include Transgender identity as a protected status (and I think orientation as well).
This was acknowledged as in direct response to City govt like Houston overriding state laws by issuing their own ordinances.
In Texas it was especially troubling, because Texas law does not recognize gender except by birth certificate, and this has caused problems with gay couples unable to get divorced if their marriage is not even recognized in Texas. The same openly gay Mayor singlehandedly enacted changes to city policy recognizing employee marriage benefits for same sex couples, which was contested as violating Texas law. The proper way to change laws is through the State, not overriding that by executive type orders without vote or check by the people.
If you ask me, I think we are heading toward dividing social and benefits programs by party so people can fund what they want, on a local all the way to a national scale, by party instead of fighting over state and federal govt. That's what I would recommend to the Texas govt and party leaders, and create jobs managing health care and benefits by party so everyone gets what they want and isn't forced to compromise due to the conflicting beliefs of other people or parties.
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Added note:
What I understand about Constitutional arguments, is that both the LGBT beliefs about homosexual orientation/transgender identity
AND the beliefs that these are behavior not inborn or genetic BOTH fall under "faith based" beliefs that are not proven. So they don't meet secular standards as race does or gender determined at birth which is scientifically agreed upon as A standard.
Whether people choose to recognize a different standard becomes an issue of social and spiritual values, either religious or political, but beliefs all the same.
So neither sides' beliefs belongs in the hands of govt.
