The Truth of the HERO Ordinance….OR The Chick Fil A Incident All Over Again

                                                                 +AJPM+

THE MILLENNIAL CATHOLIC:

With Election Day passing and all the votes counted, it shouldn't surprise us that not everyone wound up happy at the final results. What strikes me as odd is the level of whining from the losing side, which was overwhelmingly the political left.

One case getting national attention was a ballot ordinance in Houston, TX called the HERO ordinance, also known as the "bathroom ordinance" (I'll explain why it's called that in a moment.) If passed, it would have prevented business and other organizations from discriminating against 15 classes of people, including age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity. By a two-to-one margin, Houston voters said no, and thus opened the floodgates to charges of hate, ignorance and being behind the times.

In typical secular/atheist/"this life is all that matters" form, the critics have once again missed the point because once again it never dawned on them why people voted no.

First of all, the ordinance just wasn't needed.
That's right: out of all the protected classes listed in the ordinance, it was either already illegal to discriminate against those groups at the federal level (mostly by the Civil Rights Act) or it would give protection to groups that aren't discriminated against in the first place.

Second of all, some have nick-named it the "bathroom ordinance" because the language leaves the door open  for (at least according to some of the political ads) a grown man claiming he's a woman and using the ladies room, thereby leaving the door open for him to sexually assault women or little girls.

If that one sounds far-fetched, consider this: in every city that has a similar ordinance in place, that has happened at least one time. And in every case, people get mad at the people complaining about it, accusing them of bigotry.


Having looked into the ordinance myself, I applaud Houston for saying no to this nonsense. For those who disagree, consider the timeline of events:

Sometime in mid 2014- openly gay Houston mayor Annise Parker proposed a city ordinance that would allow people to use restrooms and locker rooms they felt better represented their gender identity.
This part was later removed explicitly but was still there based on wording.
The city council passed the ordinance.

Sometime later- Houston-area pastors organized a petition in protest to the ordinance. At first, the petition passed all legal requirements but then the city attorney at the time claimed it was several signatures short and was not properly notarized. Four plaintiffs filed a suit saying the original ruling on the petition was valid…and the courts agreed with them.

September 2014- Houston city attorneys under Mayor Parker's orders issued subpoenas against several petition-signing pastors, claiming their maneuver violated federal tax codes against tax-exempt groups electioneering from the pulpit.

October 2014- It didn't take long for people as well as national news outlets to figure out the subpoenas were nothing more than an attempt from the mayor (a Democrat, no surprise there) to silence anyone critical of either her or the gay agenda.
The subpoenas were dropped and the petition went to trial.

January 2015- The judge in the subsequent trial ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, meaning the measure had to be put on the ballot and have the people decide.

November 2015- Houston voters strike down the measure.


Now, after the vote, look how quickly the HERO supporters change their tune: before the vote, they said it was about equal rights for all; after the vote, they make it sound like it was only about rights for gays and trans-genders.

Now, they're calling for boycotts against Houston, including calling on the NFL to move the 2017 Super Bowl to another city.

Let's ignore for a moment that these types of people don't strike me as frequent pro-football watchers and let's instead focus on why I bring Chick Fil A into this.

When that company struck back against the gay agenda, people called for boycotts but then realized how good their waffle-fries are.
The boycott didn't work.

I predict that same thing will happen with all the calls to boycott Houston: sure there may be sore losers but the boycott won't work because a) Houston is more ethnically diverse than even New York City (that's a fact; look it up) so the charge of intolerance won't stick and b) Houston is much more financially prosperous than most of America.

Not thinking threats all the way through…atheists are such idiots.