MORE INFORMATION ABOUT HB235

 

Proponents are saying that they have removed "public accommodations" from the bill.  You may remember this from Montgomery County where we were assured that the bill would not affect safety in bathrooms, lockers and showers.  We have reviewed the bill and it still contains accommodation and facility language. But with or without such language it will force Marylanders to deny reality and is a bad bill. 

  

Click here for a list of exemptions that Governor O'Malley supported when he was Mayor of Baltimore and which were included in that city's Gender Identity law.  Assuming that the legislators agree that it would be wrong "to force Marylanders to deny reality," an infinite number of disclaimers would have to be placed in the proposed state Gender Identity Bill in order to secure the rights of individuals to simply be honest in their everyday lives.

 

These disclaimers would be absolutely necessary in order to protect Maryland constituents from viewpoint discrimination imposed by their own Government and would have to include items such as "it is not discriminatory for individuals to:  

• Use pronouns reflecting birth sex."  
• Suggest that life would be better for such individuals if they didn't transition and break up their own family." 
• State that taking hormones unnecessarily is dangerous and surgery can have complications."
• Etc. etc."   

 

 The bill is flawed and uncorrectable because in America no one should be allowed to force "their definition of reality" on others.  And at present, because of the power of special interests, we doubt that any disclaimers (protections for you) will be allowed in the bill. 

 

In fact, in Montgomery County where a similar gender identity bill was passed over the wishes of the overwhelming majority of residents, we are currently disputing a recent ruling by the Montgomery County Ethics Commission which held that Marylanders are not credible witnesses if they fail to use what the Commission considers to be the correct pronouns in addressing a man as a woman.  We believe that this governmental ruling is an example of viewpoint discrimination that will be imposed on all Marylanders by these defective Gender Identity laws. 

 

To impose their viewpoint on the rest of us, the Ethics Commission had to totally ignore the ethics law.  Section 19A-14(e) of the Montgomery County Ethics Code states that: A public employee must not intimidate, threaten, coerce or discriminate against any person for the purpose of interfering with that person's freedom to engage in political activity. Yet Dana Beyer, a transgendered woman who helped draft Montgomery County's gender identity law as an assistant to Councilmember Duchy Trachtenberg, bullied and threatened residents who were collecting signatures for a petition referendum to place the county's gender identity law on the ballot for a vote by the people. 

 

Click here to watch the following seconds-long video, where Beyer falsely tells petition collectors and would-be signers that they will be asked to leave a Giant food store, saying that "An email went out; you're going to be asked to leave. Any petitions gathered today are illegal."   

 

Click here to read our press release about the incident: 

 

Further, a Sentinel article reported that, "Dr. Dana Beyer, a Senior Policy Analyst to Councilmember Duchy Trachtenberg, .. said that she and a few other supporters went to grocery stores where CRG members were collecting signatures .... 'In all but one place we talked to the management of these grocery stores and the management had them removed' " Beyer said."

 

This and other incriminating evidence of outright harassment and disruption of referendum activity were totally ignored by the Commission. This travesty of justice only continues the viewpoint discrimination emanating from Montgomery County. 

 

In Montgomery County, Duchy Trachtenberg the chief sponsor of the Gender Identity bill was the only councilmember not re-elected.  Ask legislators to not vote for HB235.

MARYLAND CITIZENS FOR A RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT