{"id":20430,"date":"2017-03-18T03:03:45","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T03:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20430"},"modified":"2017-03-18T03:05:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T03:05:14","slug":"bathroom-bill-heads-for-possible-derailment-in-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20430","title":{"rendered":"Bathroom Bill heads for possible derailment in House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has established his legislative priority for the\u00a0 Legislature. He wants lawmakers to enact a law that forces people to rely on the gender listed on their birth certificate if they need to use a public restroom.<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 6 is known as the Bathroom Bill. It sailed through the state Senate. It’s now headed for a possible uncertain future in the state House, where Speaker Joe Straus is decidedly less enthusiastic about the Bathroom Bill than Dan Patrick.<\/p>\n

I have struggled with this one. I’ve been quiet on it so far. I believe that SB 6 is a needless piece of legislation. It’s also narrow-minded, bigoted and it ignores the reality — as difficult as it is for some of us to understand — that\u00a0some individuals actually do identify with a gender that is not listed on their birth certificate.<\/p>\n

Patrick is angry at Straus <\/a>because he doesn’t share his commitment to this piece of legislation.<\/p>\n

SB 6 might not get an up-or-down vote on the floor of the House. Does that kill the legislation? Not necessarily. Gov. Greg Abbott can call a special legislative session to ensure that the bill gets a vote. I would hope the governor would leave SB 6 in the dust bin if it never gets that vote.<\/p>\n

The Bathroom Bill strikes me as a sort of solution in search of a problem. Is this issue the kind of thing that should occupy so much of our legislators’ time, energy and commitment? No.<\/p>\n

Is there a serious threat to individuals being sexually assaulted in public restrooms by a transgender individual? No. Yet the lieutenant governor keeps harping on the need to protect Texans against sexual predators pretending to be\u00a0women just so they can use women’s restrooms.<\/p>\n

Let’s get real, ladies and gentlemen of the Texas Legislature.<\/p>\n

Individuals can — and do — identify with opposite genders. How many of them are there? I have no clue. It’s likely a tiny fraction of the 27 million residents of this great state.<\/p>\n

Let’s concentrate on bigger issues. The Bathroom Bill isn’t one of them.<\/p>\n\n

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Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has established his legislative priority for the\u00a0 Legislature. He wants lawmakers to enact a law that forces people to rely on the gender listed on their birth certificate if they need to use a public restroom. Senate Bill 6 is known as the Bathroom Bill. It sailed through the state … Continue reading Bathroom Bill heads for possible derailment in House<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[6930,1255,2006,2519,7011,4653,4728],"class_list":["post-20430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-bathroom-bill","tag-dan-patrick","tag-greg-abbott","tag-joe-straus","tag-senate-bill-6","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20433,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20430\/revisions\/20433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}