HERO, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance passed by the city council in 2014, is in trouble from the fundies, who have wrangled a referendum to get it repealed with the usual stuff about
creepy perverts in drag following your daughter into the women's restroom.
A mystery group with mystery money, Campaign for Houston, is pushing this fearmongering. If these people get enough votes, the ordinance will be repealed. If you read the actual ordinance, there's nothing in there about perverts chasing little girls into bathroom stalls, it's about equal access to public accommodations, employment and housing for 15 classes of people — including racial minorities, women, people of faith, and LGBT people.
The White House and Hillary weighed in on this today,an unusual move for a local ballot initiative. Details below the fold.
And in a rare move, the White House also weighed, although it stopped short of a full endorsement.
White House spokesman Jeff Tiller said that while the Obama administration generally does not take formal positions on specific proposal or initiates, “the president and vice president have been strong supporters of state and local efforts to protect Americans from being discriminated against based on who they are and who they love.”
“We’re confident that the citizens of Houston will vote in favor of fairness and equality,” he added.
Hillary
tweeted her support this morning. That's pretty heavy ordinance raining down on a local ballot initiative. Good for the White House and Secretary Clinton to show up and weigh in.
Five days to go until people vote next week.