{"id":155,"date":"2008-07-13T10:44:48","date_gmt":"2008-07-13T14:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/?p=155"},"modified":"2008-07-13T10:44:48","modified_gmt":"2008-07-13T14:44:48","slug":"follow-up-on-colorado-legislation-and-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/?p=155","title":{"rendered":"Follow-up on Colorado legislation and human rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I got more mail after this week&#8217;s column than I&#8217;ve ever gotten before, partly because of the content, but also because I was placed, of the first time, on the front page of the paper&#8217;s Faith section with my column. Most letters were supportive, and others were simply &#8211; and predictably &#8211; one-sided rants. However, there were a couple who actually seemed interested in learning more about the law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy\">Here\u0092s a good explanation:<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy\">&#8220;Introduced by Sen. Jennifer Veiga and Rep. Joel Judd, SB 08-200 will expand language prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, including transgender status, in housing practices, public accommodation, eligibility for jury service, availability of family planning services, as well as many other areas.&#8221;<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy\">Basically, it expands the illegality of discriminating based on sexual orientation in the public forum, including public services, etc. So, of course, opponents go straight to bathrooms, which was never a focus of the bill, and paint a grim picture of what may happen by giving equal rights. They interpret the law as allowing people of the opposite sex to wander legally into other bathrooms and accost women and children. The points I didn\u0092t go into in the article are that:<o:p>\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top: 0in\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"color: navy\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial\">Nowhere in the more than 20      states that have similar laws have any incidents of sexual assaults      increase, bathrooms or otherwise.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"color: navy\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial\">Sexual assault is still a      crime, regardless of discrimination law, and stalking women and children      in bathrooms is criminal.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"color: navy\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial\">Sexual predators are not      particularly influenced by legislation. They are driven by sexual      addiction, which transcends logic and reason.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"color: navy\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial\">It is a parent\u0092s responsibility      to watch after their children, not the state\u0092s anyway. If you\u0092re concerned      about your kids in public restrooms, for crying out loud, don\u0092t send them      in there alone.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy\">It\u0092s another example of lowest common denominator propaganda, dragging an otherwise affirming law recognizing the equal rights of human beings down to a handful of extreme hypotheticals that never have been realized anywhere else in the nation. What it says to me is that people are afraid of marginalized groups, particularly with whom they don\u0092t agree, having the same rights and power as they. We\u0092ve seen this before \u0096 same song, different verse.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I got more mail after this week&#8217;s column than I&#8217;ve ever gotten before, partly because of the content, but also because I was placed, of the first time, on the front page of the paper&#8217;s Faith section with my column. Most letters were supportive, and others were simply &#8211; and predictably &#8211; one-sided rants. However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianpiatt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}