News ReleaseHouston Skyline
For Immediate Release: November 3, 2015
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355

Nation’s Fourth Largest City Rejects Special Rights for Homosexuals and Transgenders – PA Should Too

(Harrisburg) Today the voters of Houston, Texas, the fourth largest city in the nation, rejected by a large margin, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) which would have extended special rights to homosexuals and transgenders.   The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a statewide Christian advocacy group, is pleased this discriminatory ordinance was voted down and notes that if Pennsylvania voters were given the opportunity they also would vote down such a law. However, that is not likely to be the case as homosexual activists and their allies are pushing similar bills — SB 974 and HB 1510 — through the legislature. These bills would add “sexual orientation and gender identity or expression” to the PA Human Relations Act which, like the Houston ordinance, deals with employment, housing and public accommodation.

Houston voters were outraged to learn what this ordinance — which was originally pushed through by the city’s lesbian mayor and 11 of the 17 member city council in May 2014 — would really do, which, with the inclusion of gender identity in the ordinance, would allow sexually confused men in the women’s restroom, plus locker rooms and shower facilities in local Ys and health clubs. As with the Houston ordinance, the supporters of HB 1510 and SB 974 don’t want Pennsylvanians to know this little tidbit. However, Ted Martin, executive director of Equality PA, confirmed this in June 2011.

“This overwhelming defeat of Houston’s HERO is proof that American citizens are not ready for the genderless society that radical homosexual/transgender activists are pushing. Men do not want their wives, daughters or granddaughters being forced to share a public restroom or shower facility at the local health club with a man. This defeat was a major pushback against those who are pushing this radical agenda and a major victory for decency. It was also a major victory for religious freedom as we saw the pastors whose sermons were subpoenaed by Houston’s lesbian mayor lead the fight against this terrible ordinance.   This shows the difference the church can make when united to fight against an evil such as this ordinance,” commented Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

Even with the support of corporations such as Apple, Dow Chemical, General Electric, and Hewlett Packard and the endorsement of Hollywood celebrities such as Sally Field, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Matthew Morrison and Matt Bomer, the ordinance went down in flames. Sanity prevailed in Houston tonight!

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