Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), one of the 43 GOP House members who voted for the amendment (photo credit: Gage Skidmore)
I was up in the wee hours after midnight Thursday when Daniel Horowitz’s tweet crossed my radar: The GOP-controlled House had just voted in the dead of night to write into law Obama’s executive order banning federal contractors who “discriminate” against transgendered individuals.
We all know now what that means: If you refuse to let anatomical males into your women’s dressing rooms, locker rooms, or bathrooms, you are just a bigoted hater, end of story.
Just ask Representative Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.), who descended, Trumplike, to insults when challenged by a witness. “You’re a bigot, lady,” she said, wagging her finger disapprovingly at Gail Heriot, who is a law professor and member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Or ask the poor Queens bartender, or Brooklyn dry cleaner, who now faces massive fines for failing to adequately grasp how to address the 31 genders, beginning with “bi-gendered,” and including “cross-dresser, Drag King, Drag Queen, woman, man, butch,” and my personal favorite, “non-binary transgender androgyne.”
Given that the Obama administration, in the last few years, has unilaterally redefined prohibitions on sex discrimination throughout federal law to include LGBT individuals, the willingness of Republicans to step forward and positively reinforce his agenda with legislative action is pretty remarkable. As Horowitz wrote, it “would forever lay down the marker that Republicans are okay with making transgenderism a legitimate national religion codified into law.”
Who are the 43 Republicans who actively sided with the Democrats so fully that they were willing to insert transgender protections in an unrelated bill?
