Referendum Wording Is Out
We are waiting for a judge to rule as to whether there will be a referendum on the ballot in November to reverse the Montgomery County Council's unanimous adoption of the gender identity nondiscrimination bill. He could rule today, tomorrow, everybody's waiting for that shoe to drop. Whichever way he decides, it seems like everyone is expecting an appeal.
It could matter how the text appears on the ballot. Like, it could say, "Should perverted pedophiles and predators be allowed to molest our women and children in public restrooms, yes or no?" Or, one thing that bugs me, it could be so overridden with double-and-triple negatives that nobody knows what it says: "Vote Yes to oppose the rejection of the bill banning discrimination ..." See what I mean? How about this? "Vote No to keep discrimination legal ..."
Well, we don't know if it will be on the ballot, but if it is, we have received wording that has reportedly been approved by the County Council:
I can't swear this is the real deal, it came to me from somebody who got it from somebody who got it from somebody, but I'd say this is it. So, what's your opinion? Do you think this wording favors one side over the other? Is it too vague? Confusing? Clear enough?
It could matter how the text appears on the ballot. Like, it could say, "Should perverted pedophiles and predators be allowed to molest our women and children in public restrooms, yes or no?" Or, one thing that bugs me, it could be so overridden with double-and-triple negatives that nobody knows what it says: "Vote Yes to oppose the rejection of the bill banning discrimination ..." See what I mean? How about this? "Vote No to keep discrimination legal ..."
Well, we don't know if it will be on the ballot, but if it is, we have received wording that has reportedly been approved by the County Council:
Gender Identity Discrimination
Shall the Act to prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, cable television service and taxicab service on the basis of gender identity become law?
I can't swear this is the real deal, it came to me from somebody who got it from somebody who got it from somebody, but I'd say this is it. So, what's your opinion? Do you think this wording favors one side over the other? Is it too vague? Confusing? Clear enough?
posted by JimK at 2:33 PM
21 Comments:
I think it's clear and accurate. Hope you're right, Jim, and this is what will appear.
We don't agree on much but you're right about the fact that many of these things on the ballots are so badly worded that you can't figure out what they are saying.
Where's the wording about women's shower and locker rooms? ...and the reference to keeping your daughter safe from the perverts that will frequent women's rest rooms?
RT
"Shall the Act to prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, PUBLIC ACCOMODATIONS.."
There you go, RT.
You're saying that "public accommodations" includes restrooms and showers? The County Council has vehemently denied that restrooms and showers are included under "public accommodations."
It appears that TTF and CRG are more closely aligned than I had thought?
Oops -- sorry for the post above. I see that CRG and TTF aren't aligned, after all. I misread that post and see that it was a sarcastic reply to RT....
This division does not apply to accommodations that are distinctly private or personal.
Here's one for Priya, who adores Richard Dawkins and, I assume, still reads this blog. Dinesh discusses here how Dawkins' claim that religion is destructive is testable and that the theory doesn't seem to square with this evidence. Dawkins claims are shameful coming from someone who claims to revere the scientific method:
"I'm not the only one befuddled by Dawkins. So is evolutionary biologist and atheist David Sloan Wilson. Several months ago Wilson wrote a savage review of Dawkins's The God Delusion for Michael Shermer's magazine Skeptic. Basically Wilson said that Dawkins is supposed to be an expert about evolution but his book fails to examine religion from an evolutionary perspective. Rather, Dawkins insists on faulting religion based on claims--theological, philosophical, historical--that lie entirely outside his area of knowledge. No wonder that Dawkins's one-paragraph "refutations" of the likes of Aquinas have an amateurish, even juvenile, quality.
Wilson argues that a true scientist would develop a hypothesis about religion and then test it to see how it holds up. For instance, against Dawkins's and view that religion is a kind of destructive virus, a culturally transmitted epidemic that may benefit its parasitic carriers (the preachers) but certainly not those who succumb to the infection, Wilson offers a rival hypothesis. Wilson's view is that "religious groups are products of cultural group selection....A given religion adapts its members to their local environment, enabling them to achieve by collective action what they cannot achieve alone or even together in the absence of religion. Even though elements of religion often appear bizarre, irrational, and downright dysfunctional to believers, when examined closely most of them will make sense."
In his book Darwin's Cathedral, Wilson offers the case study of the Calvinists in sixteenth-century Geneva. At a time when factionalism and internecine conflict was rending the social fabric of the city, Calvin and his deputies introduced the Ecclesiastical Ordinances. Wow, do they sound harsh! Fines for dancing and jail for gambling are only the beginning. Yet Wilson surveys a wide body of historical scholarship that concludes that "there is little doubt that Calvinism was instrumental in solving the problem of factionalism and helping the city of Geneva survive as a social entity."
How? Basically Wilson found that morals are the key to restoring social morale. (The two terms "moral" and "morale" are connected by more than the similarity of their sounds.) Wilson writes, "I was especially impressed by how the mechanisms for preventing cheating extended to the leaders in addition to the rank and file. The head of the church was not a single individual but a group of pastors who made decisions by consensus. Calvin shared all the duties of a pastor, despite his enormous additional workload as primary architect of the religion. Double accounting methods were used to prevent the inappropriate use of charitable funds. The egalitarian spirit of Calvinism is perhaps best illustrated by the duty of caring for dying plague victims. This life-threatening task was decided by lottery."
Wilson concludes, based upon this data, that at least in this one important case, the Dawkins view is wrong and his hypothesis is vindicated. The Calvinist leaders were not out to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. It is simply wrong to say that they got ahead while everyone else suffered. Rather, the opposite is true. Calvinism's dour doctirnes of original sin and predestination contributed to an unprecedented identification of leaders and followers and caused the introduction of checks and balances to curb the suspect tendencies in human nature. To put it in blunt evolutionary terms, Calvinism was socially adaptive.
So what does Dawkins have to say about all this? The short answer is: nothing. Dawkins wrote a lame response to Skeptic, noting that he didn't purport in his book to be using an evolutionary understanding of religion. This would be like a doctor saying, "Well, I wasn't claiming to be giving a medical opinion." I suppose Dawkins considers it normal for an evolutionist to ignore his own field and dispense folk prescriptions based on a cursory persusal of other disciplines."
You're saying that "public accommodations" includes restrooms and showers? The County Council has vehemently denied that restrooms and showers are included under "public accommodations."
Then are you saying that if a person who perceives himself to be a women, and tries to use the women’s restroom or showers, that fake women person can be arrested because he is in the wrong place and has invaded the privacy of women who are women by birth sex? The County Council has agreed with that?
A scientist has accused Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays (PFOX) of distorting his research by claiming that high school gay-straight alliances increase risk of suicide for teens.
PFOX President Regina Griggs said that “the risk of suicide decreases by 20% each year that a person delays homosexual or bisexual self-labeling,” and criticized schools for affirming teens who self-labeled.
However, Dr Gary Remafedi, a pediatrician at the University of Minnesota, whose research Griggs cited, told Wayne Besen that the claims did not line up with his study:
My work has been cited by PFOX in response to a Washington Post article on gay-straight alliances (GSA). … PFOX misuses one of my studies on suicide attempts in gay youth to argue that people should not identify their sexual orientation at young ages. Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes.
Misrepresenting scholarship in order to cast suspicion on LGBT persons is nothing new to anti-gay groups. In 2006, University of BC professor Elizabeth Saewyc accused James Dobson’s Focus on the Family of twisting her findings to claim that embracing lesbianism led to suicide. Dr Robert Spitzer has made the same complaint towards FotF. Robert Hogg is another researcher whose studies have been manipulated by the Religious Right to give credence to myths about the “gay lifestyle.”
Truth Wins Out has been keeping an archive of Focus on the Family’s unscholarly distortions, including statements from scholars whose own work has been misrepresented by James Dobson et al, at www.respectmyresearch.org.
"Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes."
The quote from Griggs that you pasted didn't make either of these claims so where did the scholarship get misrepresented?
Anonymous said: "Then are you saying that if a person who perceives himself to be a women, and tries to use the women’s restroom or showers, that fake women person can be arrested because he is in the wrong place and has invaded the privacy of women who are women by birth sex? The County Council has agreed with that?"
When the County Council first introduced Bill 23-07, they included language that specifically included restrooms and showers Then, they removed that specific language. However, it didn't matter that they removed it because, even without that specific language, bathrooms and showers are included in the law where it says public accommodations AND their "FACILITIES." The County Council claims now that "facilities" within "public accommodations" does not refer to bathrooms or showers, which is very amusing.
The County Council's foray into Bill 23-07 reminds me of the "Emperor with No Clothes" story. I've pasted a synopsis of the story below. The CRG represents the child, crying out "but he has no clothes on!" The County Council represents the Emperor, carrying on imperiously as though the rest of us are stupid children, unable to see that there are no clothes. Trachtenberg represents the swindler, who made the beautiful "invisible" cloth, and then convinced the emperor that it was real. At least...that's my take on the story.
From Wikipedia: "An emperor who cares too much about clothes hires two swindlers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they tell him, is invisible to anyone who was either stupid or unfit for his position. The Emperor cannot see the (non-existent) cloth, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing stupid; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they dress him in mime. The Emperor then goes on a procession through the capital show off his new "clothes". During the course of the procession, a small child cries out, "But he has nothing on!" The crowd realizes the child is telling the truth. The Emperor, however, holds his head high and continues the procession."
even without that specific language, bathrooms and showers are included in the law where it says public accommodations AND their "FACILITIES."
That's a fairy tale, Anon. As the Gazette accurately reported:
The County Council and County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) approved the law after removing a contentious amendment that would have also regulated areas like bathrooms and locker rooms. Without the amendment, operators of those facilities would retain authority on who uses them.
But opponents, such as CRG - which initially argued against the bathroom provision - still argue that the law is too vague.
So Bill 23-07 makes no change to the existing law about bathrooms and but CRG still objects to it. Please tell us, Anon, just exactly how does the CRG want to change the existing law about bathrooms?
Aunt Bea -- If you change the definition of "gender" and then tell bathroom operators that they still have control over separating their bathrooms by gender, then retaining their right to separate bathrooms means absolutely, positively NOTHING? As I've said before...it's like telling someone that they have the right to separate their recycling by putting bottles in one bin and cans in another. But, by the way, at any point, a bottle can be called a can, or a can can be called a bottle. But, by all means...you certainly haven't lost the right to separate your recycling!
thanks, new anon, for your contribution
Bea, you're a pathetic liar
If I'm a "pathetic liar" then so is the Gazette because it's their report I cut and pasted in my commment.
Here's a second Gazette article that reports the same fact:
As the Gazette reported:
Montgomery County Council acts to quell protests over transgender bill
Protests prompt committee to remove public accommodations section of the antidiscrimination bill; a vote is set for Tuesday
After a vigorous e-mail campaign attacking the public accommodations section of a bill designed to protect transgender people from discrimination, a Montgomery County Council committee has decided to remove that portion of the bill.
Critics have inundated the council and local news media for weeks over their concerns that women and girls would have be confronted by male nakedness in locker rooms and bathrooms if the bill is passed. They argue that the bill would put girls and women at risk.
The committee’s decision came late Thursday evening and was not announced publicly. The Gazette learned of the change on Friday.
The bill as amended would prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, cable television service and taxi service.
And if the Gazette and I are liars, so are The Sentinel and County Council President Mike Knapp.
During CRG's push to collect signatures, several people familiar with the legislation said many of the petitioners were inaccurate about what the bill allows. Council President Mike Knapp said he got into an argument with one CRG member gathering signatures at a polling place on Maryland's presidential primary last Tuesday.
"I asked them if they knew what they were promoting," Knapp said.
"They were misinformed in what they were telling people."
Knapp said when he explained that the legislation doesn't say anything about bathrooms or locker rooms to the petitioner, they replied, "I think you're wrong." They asked Knapp how he knew, and Knapp said, "Well, I voted for the bill."
Asked how the petitioner was misrepresenting the legislation, Knapp said, "They were asking, do you want your kids sharing bathrooms with adults of the opposite sex?" Knapp added, "To their credit, the person that was there didn't know a lot about it [the bill]."
Is the whole world, including the Gazette and Sentinel Newspapers, County Council President Mike Knapp, and this TTF supporter, lying while only the CRWackos are telling the truth? Absolutely not!
Read it for yourself. Bill 23-07 states it "does not apply to accommodations that are distinctly private or personal."
It's obvious to everyone who the liars are: the CRWackos who repeatedly lie about it. Bill 23-07 has NO bearing on bathrooms and showers. Bill 23-07's language that did cover bathrooms was removed and it clearly states it "does not apply to accommodations that are distinctly private or personal." Try telling the truth for once.
"Is the whole world, including the Gazette and Sentinel Newspapers, County Council President Mike Knapp, and this TTF supporter, lying while only the CRWackos are telling the truth? Absolutely not!"
Yes, Knapp is lying. He has a conflict of interest in discussing the issue. Having the voters of the County reject a bill he voted for is humiliating for an elected official.
Those newspapers are simply reporting what they were told, not dispensing legal advice.
As for you, yeah, you're an established liar as well as a crazed extremist who would say anything to advance the gay agenda.
We've gone over this ad nauseum, Bea. You know the truth and you're lying.
It can't be said enough.
You're a pathetic liar!
Typical non-reply Anon. You launched another personal attack against me and did not provide one iota of evidence contradicting the facts I pointed out.
I provided a link to the final version of Bill 23-07 that shows the various changes to it. Had you bothered to read it while paying attention to the notations on Page 1, you'd have realized that I am right and you, as well as the rest of your shower nut co-conspirators, are lying through your teeth.
The amendment about bathrooms was removed and Bill 23-07 expressly states on Page 5, Lines 89-90 that it "does not apply to accommodations that are distinctly private or personal."
It's abundantly clear that the crazed extremist who would say anything to advance the homophobic agenda is you.
We're not biting, Bea. We've already discussed your misinterpretation of the bill repeatedly.
You lost.
Why don't you go get a part-time waitress job so you can have some funds to contribute to this pathetic cause?
They're going to need the money.
It's not cheap to cheapen our society by attacking the idea of gender but those who are committed will shell out, I'm sure.
Think of the hours spent scouring signatures, the precious funds spent on legal eagles, the vacation hours used up to go watch pointless legal proceedings....
All for what?
All to uphold the noble idea written by the Committee of Five
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
No one has suggested taking away anyone's right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
There is no right to be treated like any gender you want.
Anonymous said…
“No one has suggested taking away anyone's right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
There is no right to be treated like any gender you want.”
Neither is anyone suggesting that they be “treated” as any gender they want - other than to be respected as the gender specific human being that they present as, and consider themselves to be.
If you’re going to hate the notion of “biological” men wanting to be women, and vice versa, then come out and say so, but don’t try to be coy about it by saying words and things like “no right to be treated like.”
Obviously no one has the “right” to be loved, which is what the word “treated” implies.
I realize you’re talking about the genitalia / bathroom / locker-room type situations -- which have been refuted every which way from Sunday ad-INFINITUM on this blog -- But to be coy about it by using words such as “treated,” makes what you claim to be your actual concern, ALL THE MORE DISHONEST.
And in so doing, makes your disdain for honesty, all the more apparent.
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