Seth Myers perfect encapsulation of how HERO went down to defeat
The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) went down to defeat in a city where an ordinance of this type would have no problem passing. After-all, Houston is a majority-minority city where people understand discrimination of all forms.
HERO ensured that the City of Houston provided an environment that is free of any type of discrimination based on sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity, or pregnancy. Sexual orientation was just one of 15 protected classes.
The ordinance’s definition of sexual orientation as “the actual or perceived status of a person with respect to his or her sexuality” is the entry the Right Wing Southern Religious Complex used as an entrance to pervert the ordinance. They called it the ‘bathroom ordinance’ and created ads to instill fear in women claiming that men could simply say they are women to enter women restrooms. Many ads featured a little girl in the restroom with a man approaching as a predator.
Seth Myers did a great job in the piece above to illustrate exactly how a good ordinance can go down based on perversion from the Right Wing Religious Complex.
It is sad how many Houstonians allowed fear to allow them to potentially take away the rights of others.