The newest battlefield in Arizona's Bigots versus Non-Bigot War.
From the state that brought us the
"show me your papers, brown person" law, we now have the
"show me your birth certificate before you pee" proposed law, aimed at (yes, you guessed it!) another minority:
Now transsexual people will have to prove they are in the “correct” bathroom. A new bill introduced this week by Republican state representative John Kavanagh would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to use a public restroom that does not correspond to the gender on one’s birth certificate. If a person is reported to be using the bathroom without the proper paperwork and matching genitals, it would be defined as “disorderly conduct”and the person could be fined $2,500 and spend six months in jail.
And then there's the sneaky way Kavanaugh went about crafting the bill, as described by
KPHO TV:
"This is designed to protect young children from being exposed to the other gender in their fullness in inappropriate situations. I'm just restoring sanity, because the Phoenix bill turned gender upside down," he continued.
Kavanagh is referring to the strengthened anti-discrimination laws Phoenix City Council passed in February. That law allows transgendered people to use the restroom of the gender with which they identify. However the bill Kavanagh amended started as something entirely different. The representative removed all the wording and replaced it with the new rules on bathroom use.
"Was this a fair way about going about introducing this bill?" Argos asked.
"It was the only way. Phoenix did this unexpected vote after the deadline for submitting new bills has passed. So I was stuck with either waiting until next year, when all sorts of harm would occur, or finding a bill that was no longer needed by one of the other reps that I could attach this to," Kavanagh explained.
Get it? He stole an
anti-discriminatory bill and switched out the language so it discriminated! Clever, clever, charming guy!
And he did it all for the children, of course. As all bigots do.
Several diarists have tackled this delightful piece of discrimination in the past few days. Be sure to check out posts by Horace Boothroyd III and MercuryX23.