From the InBox:
For Immediate ReleasePress Statement
Contacts: Jonathan Saenz, Cell: 512-879-7995, Office: 512-478-2220 [email protected]
Houston Ordinance Attacks Religious Liberty, Committee Hearing Today
______________________________________________________________________
Houston, TX, April 30, 2014 – Today, a Houston City Council committee will have a public hearing regarding Mayor Annise Parker’s proposed wide-reaching LGBT ordinance that she plans to fast track into law within the next two weeks. The proposed ordinance is a threat to public safety, Christians, and the private sector of Houston. The ordinance would give government new power to force private individuals and businesses to affirm homosexual conduct and actual or perceived “gender identity” or face serious criminal penalties, will allow men access to women’s bathrooms and locker rooms and some provisions may also be enforced against churches. A similar ordinance was proposed by the City of San Antonio last year and resulted in months of hearings that drew sharp national and statewide criticism of the dangerous ordinance and resulted in thousands of local residents testifying against the legislation. Opposition came from some who identified as Republican and others who identified as Democrats.The ordinance will be presented to the City Council’s Quality of Life Committee tomorrow, April 30 at 2 PM and for consideration by the full council on May 7. If approved, the ordinance would go into effect immediately.
Numerous faith and local community leaders are expected to speak out against the proposed LGBT ordinance.
Texas Values Action president and attorney, Jonathan Saenz, released the following statement:
“This proposed Houston ordinance is an attempt to use executive power to force private citizens to violate their religious beliefs and put themselves and their children at risk. It’s bad for business, bad for liberty, and bad for Houston.”
More information is available at txvaluesaction.org.
Anybody that expected anything different from Annise Parker was fooling themselves. She simply waited until she was on her last term-limited term to show her true colors. I suspect that this will not be the last controversial item to hit the agenda. I also suspect that if the city council votes her down she will try – in the same fashion as our current President, to invoke it by executive order.
What’s really funny is to see those aging hippies from the ’60’s who started out screaming about being oppressed by “the man”, now perfectly content to see “the man” oppress others. I suppose they really don’t remember the 60’s and 70’s very well.
How is it oppression to tell you that you can’t discriminate against someone for a characteristic they can’t change?
Ross says a characteristic they can’t change, nonsense. You are suggesting that we are incapable of free will. We as humans constantly don’t do things we want to do.
Manuel, we’ve had this discussion before. You are still wrong about people being able to change their sexual orientation, or their innate belief they were born with the wrong gender. I don’t think you’ve ever known a gay person, or a transgendered person. You fail to understand that humans are not all alike, that there are wide variations in their innate characteristics The vast majority of us fall in the normal part of the bell curve, but there are a few that fall at either end and vary from the norm. That’s your gays and transgendered humans, and other outliers.
I am wrong and have never met a homosexual or lesbian, really? There is no scientific proof that makes one a homosexual or lesbian, that they exist of course. If it is not genetic than it something else. I guess if one was predisposed to stealing it would be an innate trait that could not be controlled or changed. I guess one can be predisposed to have extra martial affairs, one just can’t control those desires. I have dated women that later became lesbian, or maybe they were lesbian and just confused before who knows. I know quite a few homosexuals, my have had neighbors that were homosexual and we lived next to each other for years and were friends. I actually have known many homosexuals during my life.
Ross if science cannot prove that homosexuality is genetic what then creates homosexuality?
We do not know everything. Perhaps the factors that cause someone to be attracted to another person of the same sex will be found next week, or next year, or next century. Who knows? The fact that we have not discovered a cause doesn’t mean there isn’t one, it just means we don’t know. In the meantime, I am perfectly happy to accept that some folks are not attracted to the opposite sex, for whatever reason, that it’s not going to change, and that there is no reason for me to treat them poorly because of it. They deserve the same respect and dignity as any of us.
First assumption, they are being treated poorly, I don’t agree.
Second assumption, they deserve the same respect and dignity as any of us.
Surely you are not suggesting that allowing them to marry, or creating special rules for them, suddenly gives them respect and dignity. That it in itself is not logical.
One could assume since the passage of Civil Rights that Blacks now have the same respect and dignity as everyone else (there are other groups besides the Black community, just using them as an example). If one assumed the above to be true we would not be reading about Donald Sterling.
But in this case passing an ordinance will not change the mind of a single person. Do we really want to change minds at the point of a stick ($5,000 fine)? I am not even sure how the City would go about proving that someone discriminated.
The only benefit that I see is for the city to maybe generate revenue from the ordinance.
The Ordinance could backfire on the Mayor and her supporters, as that ordinance could also be used by a white male heterosexual to file a complaint for not being allowed to participate in the City’s Affirmative Action program, as they would be discriminating because of sexual preference. Surely we are not going to discriminate against white male heterosexuals are we?
We do not know every thing that is true and I think once they start getting divorced they may have wished that they had not been allowed to get married.