Equal Rights Fight Heats Up Houston As Early Voting Begins
Trailing in the polls as early voting begins, opponents of Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance are continuing a barrage of seemingly desperate anti-LGBT ads promoting the transgender bathroom myth, which was thoroughly debunked yet again by Media Matters last week.Â
The anti-LGBT organization Texas Values Action released a cartoon-style ad Monday depicting a hypothetical Houston gym owner — presumably the group couldn’t find a real one — who’d be required to open female restrooms to transgender women if the ordinance passes. (The ad, which includes recycled clips from this 2012 series, currently has 1 Like and 35 Dislikes on YouTube.)
“It is critical for the future of Texas, and for our nation, that we defeat Houston Mayor Parker’s Proposition 1 Bathroom Ordinance,” Texas Values Action President Jonathan Saenz wrote in an email above the ad. “Houston’s Proposition 1 would allow biological men to enter women’s bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms and then would criminalize local business owners and organizations who simply insist that people use the bathrooms that correlate to their biological gender.”Â
The Texas Values ad reportedly was paid for in part by Citizenlink, the public policy partner of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. And Saenz, of course, is best known in LGBT circles for the fact that his wife left him for a woman in 2012.Â
In any case, the coalition supporting the ordinance, Houston Unites, countered Monday with statements in support of HERO from an African-American newspaper, a national veterans group, the AARP and the Greater Houston Partnership, which is the local chamber of commerce.Â
Jon Soltz, an Iraq War veteran and chairman of VoteVets.org, ripped NFL team owner Bob McNair. McNair owns the Houston Texans and last week contributed $10,000 to HERO opponents. In addition to sexual orientation and gender identity, the ordinance would prohibit discrimination based on 13 other categories, including veterans’ status, in employment, housing and public accommodations.Â
“It’s beyond the pale that conservative donor Bob McNair is funding efforts in Houston to take away protections for veterans,” Soltz said. “We would remind Mr. McNair that it is veterans in Houston and around the country who have made the ultimate sacrifice and should not be discriminated against in employment when they come home. … Supporting our veterans means more than just bringing them out on the field before a football game.”
HERO opponents seized upon McNair’s contribution in an effort to counter the argument that voting down the ordinance could cost Houston the 2017 Super Bowl.Â
“The HERO supporters have tried to scare people into believing that we would lose the Super Bowl,” former Harris County GOP chair Jared Woodfill told The Houston Chronicle. “Obviously, if there were any truth behind that, Bob McNair wouldn’t be donating to the folks that are opposed to the ordinance.”
McNair, a billionaire and frequent GOP donor, told the newspaper he believes the ordinance has become too divisive, and should be rewritten and submitted to voters next year. However, when it comes to the city’s major financial power brokers, McNair finds himself increasingly in the minority.Â
Last week, 44 Houston business leaders signed a full-page ad (below) supporting the ordinance from the Greater Houston Partnership that appeared in the Chronicle. They included representatives from United Airlines, BBVA Compass, the Houston Association of Realtors, JP Morgan Chase, UnitedHealthCare, Rice University and the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors’ Bureau. The ad followed an op-ed in support of the ordinance published earlier in the week by the vice president of Dow Chemical Co.
Meanwhile, a third consecutive poll found that a majority of voters say they plan to support the ordinance. The poll from KPRC 2 News found that 45 percent of respondents back Prop 1, 36 percent oppose it, and 20 percent are undecided.
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Image: Screenshot via Texas Values Action/YouTube