Wrongly judging the LGBT community in Texas

Did you know in Texas it is legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation? It also is legal to deny lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders apartment housing, or access to “public spaces,” like restaurants, if the business owner so chooses.

Fortunately, many businesses and Fortune 500 companies operating in Texas have nondiscrimination policies. And several Texas communities, like Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Houston and Plano, have local ordinances that protect gay and transgender workers from employers who discriminate.

But several proposals currently before lawmakers in Austin (18 bills plus two constitutional amendments) would strip away many of these nondiscrimination policies and rights and would take our state back in time to a Jim Crow-like era with regards to treatment of those with different sexual orientation.

Four of these tea-party backed bills would undo local municipalities’ nondiscriminatory ordinances that currently protect the LGBT community. Three of the bills would enact restrictions and penalties on transgender people who use public bathrooms or locker facilities that do not match the gender identity listed on their driver’s license. Six of the bills relate to restrictions on same-sex marriages — even though the state already has a constitutional amendment prohibiting that. And four bills would allow individuals, businesses and other organizations the right, based on religious beliefs or “conscientious” objections, to discriminate against LGBT individuals and families.

Read more: http://www.themonitor.com/opinion/commentary-wrongly-judging-the-lgbt-community-in-texas/article_431abb3e-df0b-11e4-b4ca-8f151501f2f0.html (McAllen Monitor)