“We at Big Jolly like to write about what people do, not what they say. This story first appeared in Big Jolly in May of 2014. I am republishing it based on a conservation I had with Pastor Davis yesterday at the Downtown Pachyderm.”
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to see D-Day Normandy 1944 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. This movie discussed Operation Overlord, otherwise known as the Battle of Normandy. On that day, the longest day, the allies lost countless lives. Memorial Day is an important tribute to those who have given their lives for our freedom and liberty.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution contains the Equal Protection Clause that prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. So, why would Annise Parker, in her last term, champion an equal rights ordinance, especially when our Constitution covers discrimination? Could it be that this is simply a sleight of hand, a distraction for the true purpose? Maybe Exxon wasn’t enough and she wants to run every business out of town? Why would she say that the ordinance was created in response to a Washington Avenue bar denying entry to a black man but never discuss the ordinance with NAACP leaders?
I have followed much of the local reporting on Parker’s edict and I feel like many people are missing the bigger picture. One of the basic government functions is public protection. The government is tasked with providing police, fire, and ambulance for the general public. Also, the government should pass laws that assist public safety. So, how would Parker’s policy affect public safety?
Imagine that you are the parent of a young child. After church, your family visits a local restaurant and your daughter needs to use the restroom. You take her to the bathroom. Inside, there are two small, narrow stalls; so, you send your daughter into one of the stalls as you stand guard outside. Your daughter is speaking, but you can’t quite understand her words. Just then, you see a man peering under the bathroom stall and staring at your four-year-old daughter as she uses the restroom. You think this is fiction? Think again.
![lincoln moreno](https://bigjolly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/lincoln-moreno.png)
On a Sunday morning in October 2010, Lincoln Moreno, a serial peeper, was looking at a four-year-old girl as she used the bathroom at Café Express in Meyerland. The child told her mother, “Mommy, there is a man in the restroom.” The mother did not see anything at first. Then, she looked down and saw a shadow of a head underneath the stall and a bag. Once captured, law enforcement discovered that the man had electrical tape, duct tape, a sock with a pacifier, a plastic bag, and a recording device.
Moreno also has a lengthy criminal history. This was his eighteenth criminal trespass conviction in Harris County. He has a prior conviction for indecency with a child. After he was arrested for the Café Express peeping, several of his relatives came forward and said that he molested them in the past.
Since Moreno was not using the recording device, the only crime on the books that fit the facts of Moreno’s voyeuristic conduct was criminal trespass and that, in itself, failed to result in adding Moreno to the sex offender registry. State Representative Garnet Coleman publicly decried this “serious flaw in our system” because the “punishment didn’t fit the crime.” Garnet Coleman said that he wanted to create a new legal penalty for peeping in a restroom that defined the offense as a sex crime. Coleman told reporters at the time that these crimes are “most often committed against women and children.” “Individuals who grotesquely and repeatedly violate an individual’s privacy during a private moment should be on the registry.”
In 2011, Coleman sponsored House Bill 2822, which amended the criminal laws relating to disorderly or lewd conduct in a public place. This bill was lost in committee. Today, the law remains unchanged.
During the 83rd Legislative Session, in 2013, Garnet Coleman, instead of taking up the Lincoln Moreno matter, authored House Bill 3324, which added the words “gender identity or expression” to the penal code. This language would enhance an offender’s punishment if the crime was committed with this specific bias or prejudice. This bill was left pending in the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.
Given this context, the obvious question of the day is whether the equal rights ordinance now provides a defense (or a cover) for people like Lincoln Moreno. Is this equal rights ordinance the type of liberty that men and women have sacrificed their lives for? Doesn’t the Constitution already cover equal rights and discrimination? Shouldn’t the focus be on protecting women and children? Should this equal rights ordinance be made law before we make laws to protect children from Lincoln Moreno? As the city council members vote on this ordinance, they need to think about Lincoln Moreno and his victims.
I’ll pull over on the side of the road before I allow my littles to go into the “womens” public restroom!! NOT HAPPENING!! AND SHAME ON YOU if you allow this to happen! It shouldn’t EVEN be on the table for consideration!! EXPECT that your pedophile crimes are going to soar!
So, what does the Moreno case have to do with HERO? What he did was illegal then and would be illegal now. The City can’t make what he did a worse crime, that’s a failing of state law, but the City shouldn’t put off protecting people from discrimination because the Legislature is not able to do their jobs.
As for why have a local ordinance to protect from discrimination, it’s much easier to get a case through the county courts than it is to file in Federal court.
What makes you think Parker drove ExxonMobil out of town?
Ross,
The difference is under HERO the manager of Cafe Express could be fined for asking him to leave the restroom if he felt like a woman that day. All Moreno had to do was to raise the issue and his prosecution ended because now Phil/Phyliss Fry gets to make the call. You may want to speak with the cute blonde prosecutor standing next to Moreno at his sentencing. I can put you in touch, we are married. She has never been overturned by the Texas Supreme Court, ever.
You really think that all Moreno has to do is claim he “feels like a woman”? A competent prosecutor should be able to establish that the suspect has no history of transgender expression, and is making a specious claim. And, if the suspect was looking under the stall door or making an effort to spy on another occupant of the restroom, claiming transgender identity would not be a defense. Illegal activity is still illegal, regardless of any claim made by the suspect about gender identity. And, I assume you are aware that it is not illegal for a male to enter a women’s restroom to use the toilet or sink.
Ross, you are wrong and your information is real bad. Understand, this article was written in May of 2014 after I had gone to city council and explained the Moreno case. Angry lesbian politics won the day and the rest is history now.
If you read the article he was charged with criminal trespass. If you listen to the story you know there was a possibility of him being charged with other crimes. Lincoln Morena had raped all of his female children. Only his youngest was within the statute of limitation. He later received what was ultimately a life sentence because of his age. That all happened after the story was written.
I often wonder why people buy into the Mayor’s narrative of the implications of her ordinance. It has never been correct. More importantly, those that do seem real emotional an intolerant of facts, and the law. If you look at how many times Annise Parker has been over turned by the courts, and the Texas Supreme Court it is a demonstrated ability not to understand the law.
If this wasn’t angry lesbian politics Parker would have asked those in the legal and law enforcement community for help in drafting the ordinance. She was to smart for herself again and has set back her own community 30 years.
If you think there are a bunch of Hotze supporters here you must not read this blog very often.
Ross,
Shouldn’t you mother, wife or daughter be able to have a reasonable expectation that when they use a public restroom they will be doing so with only other females?
Is this such an absurd expectation? I have no ill will towards anyone else, but HERO is a solution in search of a problem.
I don’t’ worry at all about my wife or mother being in a restroom with a transgender woman. Contrary to the plaintive mewlings of the opposition, I do not believe for one minute that someone like Lincoln Moreno will get a free pass to commit crimes simply by claiming to be transgender. What Moreno and his ilk do is illegal now, and will be illegal if the ordinance stays in force. In the event a Lincoln Moreno type sues a business for allegedly violating his rights, it would take about 5 questions in the first deposition to prove he isn’t really transgender, and that his claims are without merit.
Well Ross how putting your mother, daughter, sister, and any other female relative you have with Christopher Hambrook ( http://www.torontosun.com/2014/02/15/a-sex-predators-sick-deception )? It never occurs so it will never occur again? Your female relatives will have to wait some time for him to come out of prison, however.
Or how about the Houston person who threaten to follow and rape a young female when the ordinance pass? All she did was post a video against HERO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3WSG064V6Q
“Kevin Stoneking I absolutely cannot wait for HERO to pass so I can dress up like a woman and follow you around and rape you in bathrooms. You’re full of more shit now than you were when we were 12. I’m truly sad for you and the inflated ego you’ve gotten from being on a Christian news station. Don’t forget where all of this came from: you whoring yourself out on a reality show…have a nice life.”
Ross, admit that the homosexual community has few bad apples at least, instead of always defending them.
Ross admit that not all criminals are dumb, and will take advantages of bad laws, HERO as written is bad law.
Manuel, all of the acts you mention above are illegal now and will be illegal if the ordinance takes effect.If you think that HERO will make it OK to rape a woman, then you have a horrifically bad understanding of the law. Really, how would HERO make it OK to rape a woman? And, what does the reference to bad apples amongst homosexuals have to do with transgendered folks using the restroom that matches their gender identity?
Ross is a Biology Denier.
No, Yvonne, I’m not. However, unlike you and your ilk, I do understand that humans exist on a spectrum, and that you cannot apply black and white rules to the entire population.
Ross, what part of the argument do you fail to understand.
Of course it will be illegal after they do it. We can agree with that. But why would you and your ilk want to make it easier for perverts and their ilks to engage in criminal activity. Allowing men into women’s bathroom or shelters simply because they claim to be a woman facilitates crimes by sexual deviants who engage in criminal activity. The ordinance allows that. How did Christopher Hambrook get into the women’s shelters? He claimed he was a woman. Why did they let him in? Because that was the law, the same one you and your ilk want to pass. Why do you and your ilk want to facilitate sexual assaults of women? That I can’t understand.
Actually Ross, all of humanity can be simply divided into those with “Y” chromosomes and those without. It’s pretty much the definition of a “black and white” situation.
And if you look further, some of those on each side of the chromosome line will feel like they are the wrong physical gender. And, some percentage of humans don’t fit the mold you describe http://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html
So, Ross, what we have is a very small group (less than 0.1{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the total population) with a genetic abnormality, and a larger group (maybe 1-2{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the total population) that are mentally delusional. And on that basis you want to pass a law that will offend, discomfort and potentially harm the population at large.
I feel like I am an airplane – can you pass a law so I can fly?
There is no right to not be offended or discomforted. Which ones are you calling delusional?
While the number of persons who are born in a manner where the X and Y chromosome does exist, approximately .005 of 1{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the population, most of those persons are not gender confused, so Ross don’t confuse apples with oranges.
Ross you hit right on the nail, there is no right to not be offended or discomforted? So why is it that 99{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the population has to be offended or discomforted so that the .05 of 1{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the population can feel not offended or comfortable.?
Ross, (although you know this already) the delusional ones are those who “self identify” with a gender other than that of their genetic code.
If a man decides he is actually Napoleon, or Gandhi, or Jesus Christ, doctors will determine that he is ill. He will be treated, given medicine and counseling so that he can function in society. If the same man decides that he is actually female, our twisted society tells him he is perfectly OK and then demands that everybody else join in his delusion.
You are right however, there is no right to not be offended. However that sword cuts both ways. If your gender confused person is offended by having to use a bathroom that feels “wrong”, tough. I’d rather that a scant minority be offended than the vast majority.
I take it from your response, you do in fact believe that is an unreasonable expectation.
And by the way, it’s “sleight” of hand, not “slight” of hand, fer chrissakes.
Mick, thank you!