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Loading ...Bid to repeal LGBT rights heads to voters
08.28.2008 5:04pm EDT
(Gainesville, Florida) Gainesville voters will be asked to repeal civil rights protections for the city’s LGBT population.
The Supervisor of Elections this week certified that enough valid signatures were collected by Citizens for Good Public Policy, a socially conservative group, to put the issue on the ballot next spring.Gainesville had protected gays and lesbians in employment and housing for a decade, but Citizens for Good Public Policy balked when city council added gender identity to the human rights ordinance last January.
The measure that would repeal the ordinance would tie the city’s human rights law to the protections offered by the state.
Florida state law does not include either gender identity or sexual orientation in the categories that are protected.
Citizens for Good Public Policy said that the main concern is the use of restrooms by transpeople in restaurants and other places.
LGBT activists say they will mount an aggressive campaign to preserve the law.
Gee, I thought it was good public policy to have people use restrooms rather than the public gutters. I guess trans folk could ridicule the repeal of this law, or demonstrate for expanding state protections with a public piss-in.
The heterosexual dictatorship at it again. Heterosexuals want to control what gay people do.
How sad that hateful people like this NON-Christian group exist in Gainsville and elsewhere in this countrey. How sad we have a President who supports this hate. How sad the old man who wants to follow in his footsteps is also so full of hate.
You MUST get out and support and VOTE for Obama/Biden if you really want change! Thank you!
Ah, the red herring as a scapegoat! Citizens for Good Public Policy were OK with protections for LGBT people as long as it didn’t allow the T people to use what the individual believes to be the gender appropriate restroom?! Give me a break. They were looking for a nit to pick and felt they found one they could justifiably and reasonably argue. If they had no issue with the rest of the provisions then why didn’t they go the route of disability and family advocates? Why repeal the whole ordinance when you could simply demand a provision that would provide separate bathrooms for those in transition? I personally don’t care for the idea, but that effort would at least be in line with their primary objection without destroying the other protections provided. Their actions prove the veracity of their are dubious.
Why do people get to vote on civil rights? According to our Constitution everyone is already entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We need to legislate that all public business have a “companion” or “family” restrooms. My Mother is disabled and in a wheelchair. I, a gay man, with my partner (and husband) are her only caretakers. When we go out, it is a difficult situation to find help to clear out an existing restroom and stop people from coming in on us. Mom will not go in a men’s room, and I have to clear out the women’s room so I can take her in. It is not a short term situation, and often takes us 30 minutes or more, especially is she has an accident that needs extra cleaning. I applaud those business that have such facilities to help us. These same facilities could be used by a trans person. You see, a small solution to their problem is a great solution for the handicapped and elderly. The baby boom will need these facilities more and more. Would it not be better for the so-called “Citizens for Good Public Policy” to fight for a common useful cause rather than make life difficult for everyone who is not a “perfect heterosexual”? There can be no compassionate and kind God as long as these bigots live.
one way to help transgenders in restaurants etc. on bathroom issue is to simply provide 2 gender neutral unisex bathrooms to accommodate ONE person at a time with a outer door that locks and latched from the inside just like our local Whole Foods Market store does.
NO BATHROOMS LABELED “MEN” AND “WOMEN” anywhere, anytime. Just as the same as Sanijohns and other portable toilets are never gender-labeled and takes only one person at a time. That gets rid of screaming, fearful women thinking that their bathroom has been invaded by a person who looks and sounds like a man aad to them and gets rid of their fear of being sexually assaulted by a “man purposely hiding in women’s clothes to gain entry to their bathroom space and to them” or whatever.
One at a time gender nonspecific bathrooms would remove this problem once and for all. In places like airports where one at a time would cause huge problems with desperate people, a compromise could be both the conventional men only and women only bathrooms plus a FAMILY bathroom for one person at a time or one family at a time with a baby or young kid in need of a diaper change that could be a discreet place for a trans peron as well that won’t cause anger or hysteria on the part of people thinking what the hell is a member of the opposite sex doing here! sort of a reaction.
To me just common sense sort of solutions to avoid this situation for all. Simple keep it gender neutral for one person at a time where possible with a diaper changing table and where not possible, just add a bathroom labeled “family” with a diaper-changing table and discretion, comfort and safety are better ensured for all.
Our local IKEA is an example handling the masses with a men’s and women’s room plus a family bathroom with no gender label of any type. That provides for “all of humanity” without creating fearful opposition of any type. Great solution to this problem of where a transitioning person can safely go without arousing public hysteria and madness about the “wrong gender being in the wrong place.” so to speak.
The solution here is not to force business owners to spend a lot of money on capital improvements…exactly the move that gets the “special rights” opponents angry.
If you’re mom needs special care, you should take her to restaurants that want her business by providing a one person handicapped accessible bathroom or adapt to the multiperson bathrooms with handi-stalls (big enough for you and mom to have privacy…)
For those establishments that already have multi-person bathrooms that are accessible, why make them spend money for your mom?
What we need is a change in American’s attitudes about our bodies and bathrooms. First we must eradicate the RCC and its antiquated views of our “evil” bodies. The church has tried to make us ashamed of our bodies and sexuality and we must fight back! Like the nightclubs of NYC in the 80’s and most of Europe and South America, we Americans need to get over our privacy issues. I have seen women take little boys into mens rooms and vice versa…what is the issue here?
If you are too squeamish to use a public restroom with a man next to you in a private stall (do these woman rip their clothes off as soon as they enter a restroom? I thought they had stalls)…then you shouldn’t be peeing in public.
Get over it…have unisex multi-person bathrooms with private stalls. No big deal. Then nobody can singl out the trans population for using the “wrong” bathroom.
Of course that means we still must defeat these mean spirited initiatives. We all know their motivation is not bathrooms, that is an emotional chord they are playing. Run a campaign in Gainseville mocking people’s immature attitudes about the need for privacy in public, they’ll get the point and vote this down.
I wonder if they can hear me way back in 1868.
Anyone who wants to help with this seemingly endless harrassment in Florida. Get with FIGHTING OUT LOUD.
http://www.fightingoutloud.org.
Dave Wimberly Said:
1. “The solution here is not to force business owners to spend a lot of money on capital improvements…exactly the move that gets the “special rights” opponents angry.
If you’re mom needs special care, you should take her to restaurants that want her business by providing a one person handicapped accessible bathroom or adapt to the multiperson bathrooms with handi-stalls (big enough for you and mom to have privacy…)”
You imply that handicapped people need special rights. The “Americans with Disabilities Act” already forces business to comply with people who have special needs. I see no difference in this case. They just need to use their money wisely. Every business likes spending money on their building; it is a capital improvement and helps the bottom line and reduces their taxes. It would probably help the US with creating needed construction jobs as well.
2. Dave said:
“For those establishments that already have multi-person bathrooms that are accessible, why make them spend money for your mom?”
You tell my Mother to only go to establishments which cater to the infirmed. How would you like it if you were told to only go to selected, and perhaps bad or disliked places to eat or frequent? Why should anyone be forced to go to places they do not like, or not go to places that once were once favorite establishments? Please put on the suit you say we should wear and see how you like it.
Did you ever think that a person who may have been sexually abused or raped might be afraid to use multi-person restrooms? What about those that are ‘pee-shy”? I personally hold my privacy a highly-prized right and requirement the public must respect. And I respect theirs as well. Anyone who disagrees with these concepts “needs to get over it” as well; not everyone is an exhibitionist.
Dave, you just don’t get it. You also suggested spending money to make single person or unisex bathrooms. I think I already said that. Spending money wisely in one’s facility, (and consequently increasing one’s business base as part of the act is GOOD BUSINESS, for all.”
And companion restrooms stop all this discrimination and “special rights” rhetoric. Every right is a special right to someone. And an activist judge is simply on who rules contrary to one’s desires. When a judge rules in favor of the bigots, they NEVER seem to think that judge is an activist. You seem to think alike with those “nasty haters”. Please get over it. Take a moment to think about your posts before you hit the submit button. With all due respect, I also suggest that you should also run your posts through a spell and grammar checker.
Here we go again. I lived in Gainesville back in 1994. Anyone else remember Proposition 101- designed to prohibit the LGBT community from legally buying houses? At the time, I identified as bi- so my standard joke was- so would I get half a house or what ? Today, I guess I’d still be renting if that has passed.
It’s still illgal for GLBT folks to adopt in Florida but any straight person- even one convisted of child abuse/molestation can still adopt. Outrageous ? Yes. Sad to see Florida still going backwards.
Here we go again. I lived in Gainesville back in 1994. Anyone else remember Proposition 101- designed to prohibit the LGBT community from legally buying houses? At the time, I identified as bi- so my standard joke was- so would I get half a house or what ? Today, I guess I’d still be renting if that had passed.
It’s still illegal for GLBT folks to adopt in Florida but any straight person- even one convicted of child abuse/molestation can still adopt. Outrageous ? Yes. Sad to see Florida still going backwards.
As a father of 2 little girls, I wholehearted support repealing this ridiculous provision that exists in an amendment that I otherwise support. “feeling” like a woman on a certain day will be exploited not by transgendered, but by pedophiles and perverts. It is too bad. I know many gay people who fought hard for the other reasonable provisions (visiting rights, benefits, etc) that most people support. But they just had to throw the public restroom thing in there. Had they not done that, it would never have been an issue to repeal it. Go back and rewrite it as it exists in other cities - take out the restroom thing-and it will be back in effect.