Transgender "Bathroom Bills:" Inside the Debate

Read article : Transgender "Bathroom Bills:" Inside the Debate

This week a judge in Virginia district court will consider a question coming before lawmakers and school principals across the country: should transgender Americans always be allowed to use the restrooms where they feel the most comfortable? And is it discrimination when they’re forced to do otherwise? Here is a primer on why the bathroom question is such a hot-button issue and why it’s likely to show up in our newsfeeds in coming months.

Bathrooms and fights for civil rights go hand-in-hand.In the Jim Crow era, bathrooms—along with water fountains and lunch counters—were places that might be marked with “white only” signs. The bathroom has also been a battleground for women and handicapped workers fighting for equal treatment in the workplace. Because of the nature of things people do in the bathroom, it can be a space where they feel exposed or vulnerable and therefore resist change. It is also, as transgender icon Janet Mock says, “the great equalizer for all of us.”

Related

Transgender people have to fight for authenticity as well as equality.The average person might have their age questioned when buying liquor or their ID checked at the airport, but people doubt transgender people's true identity on a much more regular and deeper level. For transgender kids, that might take the form of parents insisting that they’re going through a phase or putting them in conversion therapy. For adults, that might be people questioning whether Caitlyn Jenner is really just doing it all for the publicity. “There is still this reluctance to accept trans people for who they are,” Mock says.

To opponents, “bathroom bills” suggest that what transgender people feel isn’t valid.So-called “bathroom bills” introduced by social conservatives in states such as Arizona, Maryland, Kentucky and Florida typically mandate that people use the bathroom that matches the sex on their birth certificate. That’s a marker that is difficult for most transgender people to change, as well as one that, for them, is a bureaucratic indicator decided by someone else that should not be weighed against their innate sense of self. Just a handful of states have "modernization" processes that make it easier for transgender people to change their birth certificates. Some in the community have protested by taking selfies in the bathrooms that they would have to use under such laws, highlighting how those spaces don’t jibe with their appearance or their feelings.

Conservatives argue that such bills are necessary to protect people’s privacy and public safety. Some social conservatives will say that they think transgender people are deluded. “I don’t want men who think they are women in my bathrooms,” testified a Maryland woman in a 2014 hearing on an LGBT non-discrimination bill. But a more common argument is that allowing transgender women to use the women’s room would open the doors up for sexual predators or peeping teenage boys to use those protections as a dangerous ruse to get into female spaces. GOP politician Mike Huckabee made this point in a much-talked-about joke that made the rounds earlier this summer.

No evidence has been uncovered showing that such fears are warranted. Several states, school districts and corporations have adopted their own policies affirming transgender people’s right to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity and have not reported problems, opponents of bathroom bills say. Progressive media watchdog Media Matters called up the 17 largest school districts governed by such policies and asked them if they had experienced any incidents of harassment or inappropriate behavior; they reported none had. Liberal lawmakers and activists say such rhetoric is just fear-mongering cloaking LGBT phobias.

Bathroom policies affect transgender people in serious ways. Transgender students have reported being told that they needed to use a unisex nurse’s office or staff restroom—missing out on class time, being teased and feeling “quarantined.” More than a quarter of transgender adults say they’ve been denied access to “gender-appropriate facilities.” In a study from UCLA’s Williams Institute, nearly 70% of transgender people said they had experienced verbal harassment in a situation involving gender-segregated bathrooms, while nearly 10% reported physical assault. Transgender people will often seek out unisex bathrooms to avoid conflict that makes them feel like they don’t belong in one space or the other.

More political fights about this issue are coming. Members of Congress recently introduced the Equality Act, a non-discrimination bill that would help protect LGBT Americans in spheres from the workplace to the jury box to the bathroom. Currently, there is no federal law that explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Most states also lack such statutes. Social conservatives in California, meanwhile, have vowed to get a “Privacy For All” initiative on the ballot that would require people to use school and government facilities that correspond with the marker on their birth certificate.

In the meantime, courts will continue to help decide the issue. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice have found that discrimination against transgender people—including denying them bathroom access—is a form of sex discrimination covered under the Civil Rights Act. While some have said this proves that additional protections are not necessary, advocates for explicit non-discrimination laws say that they’re important for enforcement, educating the public and making sure a person doesn’t have to go to court to make their case. The decision from Virginia’s district court will add to the precedents, spurring on the debate as LGBT activists choose their next battles after marriage equality.

Texas ‘bathroom’ bills stalled in special legislative session

Read article : Texas ‘bathroom’ bills stalled in special legislative session

Texas measures to restrict access for transgender people to bathrooms in schools and public buildings appear doomed this week after hundreds of businesses stood in opposition and moderate Republican powerbrokers blocked the bills.

The so-called bathroom bills have caused rifts among Republicans who control the state’s legislature, leaving no likely path to passage before a 30-day special session wraps on Wednesday, analysts and lawmakers said.

“The bathroom bill in this session is dead and buried with dirt over its coffin,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

Enactment in Texas, the most populous Republican-dominated state, could give momentum to other socially conservative states for additional action on an issue that has become a flashpoint in the U.S. culture wars.

But House Speaker Joe Straus, a pro-business Republican who controls the agenda in the body, has shown little interest in passing a bathroom bill, which he said was not a priority.

His position was buffeted by a well-financed campaign from major corporations including Texas-based energy companies Halliburton and ExxonMobil Global Services , which have said the bills were discriminatory and would make it hard for them to recruit top talent.

Supporters of the legislation, who say it can help protect women and children from sexual assaults, have not given up.

But they acknowledge there is only a slim chance of success, with lawmakers still trying to reach deals on almost all of the 20 priority items set by Republican Governor Greg Abbott for the session.

Senate Bill 3, which made it through the Senate and stalled in the House, requires people to use restrooms, showers and locker rooms in public schools and other state and local government facilities that match the sex on their birth certificate, as opposed to their gender identity.

A push for bathroom bills nationally sputtered after North Carolina partially repealed such a measure in March after boycotts by athletic organizations and businesses that have cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

Opposition against the Texas measures includes global tech giants IBM and Apple , major Texas city police chiefs who contested claims the bills would protect public safety, left-leaning religious leaders and the National Hockey League’s Dallas Stars team.

Republican Representative Ron Simmons, who sponsored a version of the bathroom legislation in the Texas House, said the privacy issue at the heart of the bills is supported by a wide majority of Republican primary voters.

“Just because we don’t pass legislation doesn’t mean that the issue is not going to be there,” he said.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Leslie Adler)

Texas Among States With Anti-Transgender ‘Bathroom Bills’ on the Horizon

Read article : Texas Among States With Anti-Transgender ‘Bathroom Bills’ on the Horizon

The battle over America’s bathrooms has raged into 2017, as advocates in more than half a dozen states are seeking to enact “bathroom bills” that would require people to use the facilities that correspond to their sex assigned at birth.

Even though North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory was defeated in November’s election, the controversial legislation the Republican signed last year placing restrictions on who can use sex-segregated bathrooms in the state, House Bill 2, remains in place. Now a number of legislators in other states are putting forward their own cases to clamp down on who uses what bathrooms, and in the process targeting the transgender and gender non-binary communities.

The National Conference on State Legislators said on Thursday that legislation has been introduced recently in eight states, including Texas, to restrict the use of spaces such as bathrooms, changing facilities, shower rooms and locker rooms by requiring that they be used according to a person's biological sex.

Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now

On Thursday in Texas, Senate Bill 6, aka the Texas Privacy Act, was filed. The state's lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, a conservative Christian, said the bill would protect the privacy of people living in the state. The bill also would allow the Texas attorney general to issue fines of between $1,000 and $1,500 per day for a first offense—and between $10,000 and $10,500 a day for the second offense—to school districts, charter schools and state agencies that violate the law. You can read the contents of the bill here.

Related: Critics says Texas ‘bathroom bill’ targets LGBT rights 

“We know it’s going to be a tough fight. The forces of fear and misinformation will pull out all the stops, both in Texas and nationally,” Patrick said at a press conference in Austin while unveiling the bill. “You can mark today as the day that Texas is drawing a line in the sand and saying no. The privacy and safety of Texans is our first priority, not political correctness.”

The Texas effort comes despite a warning from the Texas Association of Business that said the state could lose between $964 million and $8.5 billion and nearly 200,000 jobs as a result. North Carolina suffered economic losses after its House Bill 2 became law, including the relocation of major sporting events out of the state and some companies pulling back from planned job growth. Patrick said critics were dispersing “fake news” about the risk to Texas's economy, adding that North Carolina is “doing just fine.”

.@DanPatrick & @LoisKolkhorst introduced a bill that discriminates against & blocks facility access for trans Texans https://t.co/YKJaoOvAdH

— HumanRightsCampaign (@HRC)

January 5, 2017

Following the furor that erupted last year over North Carolina’s law, the U.S. Department of Education issued a letter providing guidance to schools on Title IX requirements. The letter said that transgender students in public schools should be allowed to use sex-segregated facilities that are based on their gender identity, which is not the same as sex assigned at birth.

“Bathroom bills” have become something of a national phenomenon in recent years: Between 2013 and 2016, bathroom bills or similar legislation were considered in more than two dozen states. Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, Texas and Wisconsin all considered bathroom bills last year. Still, North Carolina remains the only state that has enacted such a law. Below are the states with prefiled and pending bathroom bill legislation.

Minnesota

Introduced on Thursday, House File 41, aka the Student Privacy Act, would require that all restrooms, locker rooms, shower rooms and changing rooms used by multiple students “be designated for the exclusive use” of male and female students only. The bill defines sex as the sex assigned at birth and determined by chromosomes. The bill, which is pending, allows schools to provide special accommodations for students in certain circumstances, including a single-occupancy stall. 

Kentucky

House Bill 106 was introduced on January 3 by Democratic State Representative Rich Nelson. Under the bill, the executive branch of the state government would require every multi-occupancy bathroom or changing facility to be used by people according to the gender corresponding to that listed on their birth certificates. The law would also require cities, counties and local municipalities to “designate every multiple occupancy bathroom or changing facility it controls to only be used by persons based on their ‘biological sex.’”

Nelson, who also introduced a religious freedom bill this week, said that while he was not aware of any current issue with bathrooms in Kentucky, “we want to be vigilant about what could happen.” You can read the contents of the bill here.

Missouri

Senate Bill 98, introduced on January 4, states that all school restrooms, locker rooms, and shower rooms used by multiple students must be designated for and used by male or female students only. The bill states that “at no time shall a student be allowed to access a public school restroom, locker room, or shower room designated for use by the opposite biological sex.” Read the bill here.

Making sure all the bases are covered, Missouri also has a pending House Bill 202, which “requires all public restrooms, other than single occupancy restrooms, to be gender-divided.” According to the bill’s text, HB 202 is the same as HB 1847, which was introduced in 2016.

South Carolina

South Carolina’s House Bill 3012, prefiled in mid-December, says local governments cannot pass laws allowing people to use public accommodations, bathrooms and changing rooms regardless of their biological sex. Local governments would be allowed to pass laws requiring people to use such facilities based only on their biological sex.

Virginia

The state prefiled House Bill 1612 on Tuesday. It says people are not allowed to enter opposite-sex facilities, “subject to certain exceptions.” Also known as the Physical Privacy Act, it was filed in the Virginia House of Delegates by Delegate Bob Marshall.

On Thursday, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe signed an executive order prohibiting the state “from doing business with entities that discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity.” He called his policy “another giant step forward in our fight to ensure that all Virginians receive the full benefits of their citizenship, without regard to their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Alabama

Senate Bill 1 was prefiled by Alabama Senator Phil Williams in May; it is a similar legislative effort couched in the language of “privacy.” Under the bill, businesses with restrooms, bathrooms or changing facilities would have to choose between three options: have facilities used by only one person at a time; have facilities used by multiple people of the same gender; or have an attendant stationed outside the bathroom “to monitor the appropriate use of the restroom and answer any questions or concerns posed by users.”

The bill also says bathrooms and changing rooms are “places of increased vulnerability and present the potential for crimes against individuals utilizing those facilities,” including voyeurism, exhibitionism, molestation, and assault and battery.

Washington

Prefiled in early December, House Bill 1101 has some of the harshest language of any "bathroom bill." It states that a person who is “preoperative, nonoperative, or otherwise has genitalia of a different gender from that which the facility is segregated” can, by law, be denied the use of a bathroom. The bill doesn’t say exactly how that would be determined.

Does the Texas bathroom bill battle reflect larger GOP problem?

Read article : Does the Texas bathroom bill battle reflect larger GOP problem?

Texas lawmakers are heading into a special session Tuesday to consider restrictions again on what bathroom transgender people can use.

Fourteen Dallas-based businesses signed a letter to fight the proposed legislation. American and Southwest Airlines, along with AT&T, are just some of the companies that argue it would hurt the state's ability to attract new business and jobs.

At the Texas state capitol in Austin, it's not just a debate on transgender rights, it's a battle that appears to reflect what the GOP is facing at the national level, with moderate Republicans facing off against their more right-leaning fellow party members.

When it comes to the issue of transgender people using public bathrooms in Texas, the state's Republican governor has voiced the conservative party line, David Begnaud reports.

But just like two months ago, the governor's agenda is facing pushback on multiple fronts. Saturday, transgender woman Ashley Smith posted a photo with the governor with the caption, "How will the Potty Police know I'm transgender if the Governor doesn't."

It's also pitting Republican lawmakers against each other.
 
"The party's divided over whether this is a deeply important moral issue or just a complete fake with no purpose except to rally the base," said Jonathan Tilov of the Austin-American Statesman.

Conservative State Representative Ron Simmons introduced HB-46 which could impact transgender bathroom use in school districts.
 
"I need to know that I can have the same expectation of privacy no matter where I am in the state of Texas if I'm using one of these facilities," Simmons said.
 
But the Republican state house speaker has voiced his concern for these so-called bathroom bills. He was quoted in the New Yorker as saying he was "disgusted by all this."
 
"It's absurd that bathroom bills have taken on greater urgency than fixing our school finance system," said State House Speaker Joe Straus. 

 
"He's pushing back against the will of the governor, and lieutenant governor, so it's a concern," Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said.
 
Last year, protests and threats of boycotts erupted over a similar measure in North Carolina which lawmakers were eventually forced to roll back. More than a dozen Texas-based CEOs have signed an open letter expressing their concern the legislation would hurt businesses, investment and jobs. Those sentiments were echoed in a full-page ad taken out by IBM on Friday.

"We have trans employees and we have families with trans children and they're not feeling safe," Dianne Gherson, IBM's senior vice president of human resources.
 
One estimate says the Texas economy could lose more than $5.5 billion should the measures pass.

And there could be political costs as well in the 2018 midterm elections.

Conservative super PACs are already planning to spend big money to target moderate Republicans who don't support the legislation.

© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Bathroom battles part of war over 'normal'

Read article : Bathroom battles part of war over 'normal'

A prominent Christian leader suggests the ongoing issue of transgendered people and public restrooms is about more than where people should potty. 

"When you pull up your anchor and you have no moral compass that says true north, then increasingly you lose the ability to understand what's normal," warns Dr. Richard Land, who leads Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Land is commenting about so-called "bathroom bills" and transgendered people, a cultural battle in which some state governments have reacted to the relatively new controversy of mentally ill men stating they are women and demanding access to women's restrooms and locker rooms.

The most infamous political fight took place in North Carolina, where then-Gov. Pat McCrory and legislators took action with bill HB2 after a Charlotte ordinance forced business owners to allow men to use women's restrooms or be fined for refusing to do so.

Homosexual activists reacted as expected: McCrory was denounced as "transphobic" and a hater (and narrowly lost re-election); the Department of Justice announced it would sue; and LBGT-supporting companies were pressured to pressure state officials with a threat of fleeing corporations and lost jobs. 

A year later, Texas lawmakers are currently in a special session dealing with the issue of bathroom policy. One of two bills submitted in the House would require people to use the bathroom, showers and other private facilities based on their born gender. Another bill deals strictly with schools.

Land says progressives, meanwhile, are increasingly unable to state what is moral and normal.

"And if nothing is normal," he says "then everything is normal."

OneNewsNow has reported how the American Psyschiatric Association softened the term "gender identify disorder" to "gender dysphoria" in 2013 under pressure from homosexual activists.

Beyond the issue of men identifying as women, there is also a left-wing demand to identify people according to their preferred gender, with supposed gender pronouns such as "ze" and "zir" used in place of "him" and "her." 

There is also an ongoing demand to address people by their self-identified gender identities, now numbering more than 50, such as "agender," "pangender," and "gender fluid." 

Much like the Charlotte ordinance, New York City is threatening to fine business owners who cite the wrong pronoun to transgendered customers. 

The newest boundaries being pushed include a grown man who identifies as a little girl and a man-turned-woman who identifies as a dragon, and even a woman who identifies as blind after pouring drain cleaner in her eyes with the help of a psychologist. 

Texans don't agree with such loony demands, says Land, pointing to polling that suggests a majority of husbands and fathers oppose a biological male using the shower and restroom with their wives and daughters.

"Frankly, I'll be very honest with you, I don't really care who goes to the bathroom with me," Land says. "I do care a great deal about who goes to the bathroom with my wife and my two daughters."

Governor revives 'bathroom bill' for special session | State

Read article : Governor revives 'bathroom bill' for special session | State

AUSTIN — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott revived a failed "bathroom bill" targeting transgender people Tuesday while also resurrecting anti-abortion proposals, anti-union efforts and more as an encore to a rancorous legislative session that ended with Republicans feuding and one GOP lawmaker threatening to pull a gun on a Democratic colleague.

A lengthy special session agenda set by Abbott — nearly 20 issues in all — now threatens to rekindle those hostilities at the Texas Capitol through summer and was announced just a week after lawmakers had returned home and began cooling off.

Legislators won't return to work until July 18, but already Democrats and some outside groups are fuming, particularly over a North Carolina-style "bathroom bill" that big business opponents including Amazon, IBM and the NFL called discriminatory and hoped had been extinguished for good. Before lawmakers adjourned last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg signed a letter reiterating their opposition and called the proposal bad for business.

"At a minimum, we need a law that protects the privacy of our children in our public schools," Abbott said.

The first try collapsed when social conservatives who set Texas' political agenda and Republican moderates deadlocked over how far the bill should go. No state has followed in the footsteps of North Carolina following the economic and political upheaval wrought by a 2016 law that required transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds with the sex on their birth certificate.

The fallout prompted North Carolina to partially repeal the law in March, but Abbott has committed to pursuing a similar measure even as other GOP governors across the U.S. have backed away. One version he again endorsed Tuesday stops short of requiring people to use the bathroom listed on their birth certificate but would rollback transgender protections in major Texas cities.

The decision was a significant political test for Abbott, who faces re-election in 2018 and didn't begin publicly supporting a "bathroom bill" until weeks after the full legislative session began in January. It ended Memorial Day with Republican leaders feuding over the failure of the original proposal and — in another sign of raw tensions — a skirmish between lawmakers over a "sanctuary cities" crackdown.

Tensions had flared when Republican Matt Rinaldi announced he had called federal immigration authorities on protesters in gallery of the Texas House of Representatives who Rinaldi said held signs saying they were in the country illegally. He was then confronted and pushed by Democratic lawmakers and told one that he would shoot him "in self-defense" if needed.

Abbott said he expected lawmakers to return "with a calm demeanor."

Democrats, who are vastly outnumbered in the Texas Legislature and are powerless to stop most bills, balked at the agenda. The special session lasts 30 days and lawmakers are not required to pass every bill that Abbott has demanded.

"Governor Abbott needs to be reminded that he was not elected president of a local Tea Party chapter; he holds the office of governor in the greatest state in the county," Democratic House Caucus chairman Chris Turner said.

Abbott also ordered the Legislature to work on increasing teacher pay and a limited form of school vouchers, which gives public money to private schools. Another is an anti-abortion effort that would prohibit taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions and bar some insurance plans from covering the procedure. He also wants to strengthen regulations mandating that clinics and other health facilities report all complications arising after abortions are performed, even though such complications are rare.

He is also reviving an effort stalled during the regular session, but has passed in other Republican-controlled states, that would end voluntary payroll deductions of union dues from state and public employee paychecks.

___

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

Texas transgender 'bathroom bill' dies for second time this year

Read article : Texas transgender 'bathroom bill' dies for second time this year

Aug. 16 (UPI) -- The Texas legislature concluded its special session late Tuesday without passing the so-called "bathroom bill" -- controversial legislation aimed at limiting public restroom access to transgender persons.

The special 30-day session ended a day ahead of schedule, but without a resolution for the restroom bill -- and several others Gov. Greg Abbott wanted passed.

The proposed law failed to pass for the second time this year. A similar effort to restrict transgender persons from using public bathrooms, showers and lockers opposite their birth sex died during the legislature's regular session in June.

The bathroom bill divided both the state's Senate, which approved it, and House, which defeated it. The Texas Republican Party was also split on the issue.

Demonstrators in Austin opposed the restrictive proposal, calling it a veiled attempt to marginalize the transgender community. Businesses like ExxonMobil and Amazon opposed it as well -- joining more than 50 Fortune 500 companies against the bill -- as well as law enforcement organizations and state and national teachers groups, who called it discriminatory and unnecessary.

The Dallas Stars NHL hockey club also repelled the proposed law, becoming Texas' first professional sports team to weigh in on the matter.

For Abbott, who is running for re-election in 2018, the special session provided no success. Without another, the state's legislators will not meet again until 2019. Other bills Abbott favored, including a property tax proposal and taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools, also failed.

"The last 29 days have been nothing more than a waste of time and taxpayer dollars," commented Democratic State Rep. Chris Tuner.

With Bathroom Bill Dead, Houston-Founded Pastor Council Looks To Future Fights

Read article : With Bathroom Bill Dead, Houston-Founded Pastor Council Looks To Future Fights

Dave Welch speaks during a press conference in favor of a bathroom bill at the Texas Capitol near the end of the special session on August 14, 2017.

A day before the Texas Legislature ended its special session this week, a session that included a high-profile fight over a “bathroom bill” that appeared almost certainly dead, David Welch had a message for Gov. Greg Abbott: call lawmakers back to Austin. Again.

For years, Welch, executive director of the Texas Pastor Council, has worked to pass a bill that would ban local policies that ensured transgender individuals’ right to use restrooms in public schools and government buildings that match their gender identity. The summer special session, which was quickly coming to a close, had been Welch and other social conservatives’ second chance, an overtime round after the bill — denounced by critics as discriminatory and unnecessary — failed during the regular session that ended in May.  

But with the Texas House unlikely to vote on a bathroom bill, Welch gathered with some of the most conservative Republicans in that chamber to make a final plea. The bill, they argued without any evidence, would prevent men from entering bathrooms to sexually assault or harass women.

“If this does not pass during this special session, we are asking for, urgently on behalf of all these pastors across the state of Texas, that we do hold a second special session until the job is done,” Welch said at the press event, hosted by Texas Values, a socially conservative group.

 Though the group of lawmakers, religious leaders and activists were still coming to terms with their failure to get a bill to Abbott’s desk, for Welch’s Pastor Council, the years-long fight over bathroom restrictions has nonetheless been a galvanizing campaign.

The group, which Welch founded in 2003, has grown from a local organization to a burgeoning statewide apparatus with eyes on someday becoming a nationwide force, one able to mobilize conservative Christians around the country into future political battles. If Abbott doesn’t call lawmakers back for another special session to pass a bathroom bill, the group is likely to shift its attention to the 2018 elections. 

“Our role in this process shouldn’t be restricted just because people attend church,” Welch told The Texas Tribune. “Active voting, informed voting, is a legitimate ministry of the church.”

A pastor for pastors

Welch has made a career out of mixing the religious and the political. Before founding the Pastors Council, he spent time at the Christian Coalition and Vision America, a controversial national evangelical group led by Rick Scarborough, a Texas pastor. And just before he founded the Pastor Council, Welch briefly worked as the executive director of the Republican Party in Harris County, where he would get to know many of the politicians that would animate his later campaigns. Welch said he has known Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, one of the most outspoken proponents of a bathroom bill in state government, since he was a radio host in Houston.

But it was with the Pastor Council — at first a small group of Houston pastors — that Welch would begin to make his deepest mark in Texas politics.

“We formed the Houston area pastor council in 2003 as a group of 12 pastors, across racial and denominational lines, to engage together on a variety of social moral cultural issues,” he said.

 

That initial group has since expanded into two additional entities, the Texas Pastor Council and the US Pastor Council, though the distinctions between the groups can be murky. Welch — who himself no longer preaches, instead referring to himself as a “pastor for pastors” — leads all three groups, and the main phone number for the US Pastor Council is a direct line to Welch.

The group, according to Welch, has taken on a range of issues, from criminal justice reform to child foster care. But over the course of his career, Welch and the group have had a decided preoccupation with attacking LGBT rights, what Welch describes as “the continued tide of the radical political LGBTQ movement trying to work to undermine traditional marriage and traditional family.” On the US Pastor Council website, the only “current issue” listed is “Woman’s Privacy Protection,” a page that features a number of talking points in favor of a bathroom bill.

“They have made anti-LGBT activism their primary focus,” said Dan Quinn, communications director for Texas Freedom Network, a liberal watchdog group. “They’ve had their most public efforts trying to defeat anything that protects equality for LGBT Texans.”

Over the course of several years as a columnist for World Net Daily, a far-right website known for hosting conspiracy theories, Welch railed against same-sex marriage and legal protections for LGBT individuals. In a 2009 post titled “When the Wicked Rule,” Welch attacked a new federal law that protected LGBT individuals from hate crimes as condoning “every possible form of sexual deviancy.” He denounced the “radical sexual-deviancy jihad” in a post called “My Gay America” in 2010.

“Lesbian Mayor Annise Parker has gone above and beyond to now extend protection through executive orders to ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression,’” he wrote at the time. “Keep your wives and daughters out of Houston city restrooms.”

That rhetoric against Parker – the first openly gay mayor of a large American city — and legal protections for LGBT individuals in Houston would eventually become talking points against the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which would have made it illegal to discriminate against someone based on 15 different “protected characteristics,” including sex, race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.

During that fight — which concluded with Houston residents voting overwhelmingly to strike down the nondiscrimination ordinance — Welch played a leading role in both the electoral and legal campaigns against the city. Jared Woodfill, one of the lead organizers against the HERO ordinance in Houston, said that Welch and his organization were “extremely instrumental” in gathering the signatures that would ultimately prompt the lawsuit and referendum overturning the ordinance.

Indeed, organizing and mobilizing voters is a key part of the Pastor Council’s mission. Its website boasts pages titled “Every Christian Votes” and the “AMERICA plan.” Under the “AMERICA plan,” pastors are encouraged to communicate with congregants about political issues, distribute voter guides and register “every eligible adult” to vote.

In other words, Welch had already established an infrastructure for turning out voters before the HERO referendum — a battle that helped elevate his organization and its platform. Randy Wilson, national field director for Church Ministries for the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, which has worked with the Pastor Council, said this is easier said than done.

“Dave has to have an established and billed credibility with the pastors, a very untrusting demographic, really,” he said.

That credibility and visibility would only grow when the city issued subpoenas for sermons and other statements Welch and other members of the Pastors Council had made in support of a 2014 failed petition drive aimed at repealing HERO. That incident drew national attention, energizing conservatives across Texas and the country and landing Welch on national media. (In response to that incident, the Texas Legislature passed a lawearlier this year shielding pastors’ sermons from government subpoena power.)

“It certainly escalated some elements of what we do to a much higher level because of the visibility of that Houston battle,” Welch said. “That achieved national attention.”

With that momentum, Welch, Woodfill and other conservative activists began to look to the the Legislature as the next battleground for the issue. Welch would begin to use tactics that had worked in Houston — hosting workshops to educate pastors, blasting out emails on the issues and hosting rallies — on a statewide level.

“The network of churches that has become involved in this issue has become very, very important,” Woodfill said.“The same model is being used across the state of Texas.”

But that model has had its limits. In the Legislature, efforts to pass a bathroom bill have failed against stiff opposition from the House, in particular that of House Speaker Joe Straus.

Despite those setbacks, the US Pastor Council itself has continued to grow, Welch said. According to tax documents on a database maintained by ProPublica, the US Pastor Council, which is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization and does not disclose its donors, saw its revenue more than double from $329,696 to $833,749 between 2014 and 2015, the last year for which data is available and the year of the HERO ordinance vote in Houston.

Welch said the group does not buy large ad campaigns, instead focusing resources on hosting workshops and organizing among pastors.

“There aren’t many religious groups that overtly have this partisan affiliation or policy preference as pronounced as the Pastors Council,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “That’s been a major change we’ve seen since 2013 or 2014.”

With primary season approaching, members of the Pastor Council are preparing to take their campaign to the ballot box and unseat Republicans who did not do enough to challenge Straus’ opposition to a “bathroom bill.”Steve Riggle, a pastor to a congregation of more than 20,000 at Grace Community Church in Houston and a member of the Pastor Council, said he and others are talking about “how in the world do we have 90-some Republicans [in the 150-member Texas House] who won’t stand behind what they say they believe.”

“They’re more afraid of Straus than they are of us,” he said. “It’s about time they’re more afraid of us.”

“This is not over”

In early August, in the midst of the special session, Welch and dozens of other pastors descended on Austin. Hundreds of pastors had signed a letter in support of the bathroom legislation, and before heading inside, the group that had made the trip gathered on the Capitol steps for a brief rally.

Throughout his campaign for a bathroom bill, Welch has enjoyed easy access to the state’s elected officials. He hosted a policy briefing in February that featured, among others, Patrick and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The August rally, which the Texas Pastor Council had promoted as a response to “opponents of God’s created order,” was no exception.

State Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, and state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, the authors of bathroom bills in their chambers, both spoke to the importance of the bill as Welch acted as the effective emcee of the event, leading the crowd in chants of “Let the House vote.”  

“We’re going to take this letter to the House as the voice of the state of Texas and our churches today,” Welch said.

But even as he represents pastors across the state, Welch and his work enjoy far from unanimous support from Christian and other religious leaders. During the regular session, about 50 faith leaders of various denominations lined the stairs outside the Texas House in protest of bills targeting LGBT Texans.

And just days before Welch arrived in Austin for the rally this month, dozens of religious leaders gathered in the very same spot to denounce the bill as discriminatory and hypocritical. In front of a crowd of more than one hundred supporters, an imam from Austin, as well as pastors and rabbis from across the state spoke about how their faith led them to oppose the legislation.

For Steve Wells, a self-described conservative pastor at the South Main Baptist Church in Houston, the campaign for the “bathroom bill” represents “bad theology.” He says he wishes that Welch and other like-minded pastors would focus more on the common dignity granted human beings.

“You will never in your lifetime meet someone who was not created in the image of God,” he said.

And in July, leaders of the national Episcopal Church sent a letter to Strausasking him to remain “steadfast” in his opposition to the legislation, also denouncing it as discriminatory.

Terri Burke, the executive director of the ACLU in Texas, described the “bathroom bill” as the latest frontier for far-right groups opposed to LGBT rights. Now that sexual orientation is largely protected under the law, she said, gender identity has become a target.

“I think those who want to discriminate have figured out LGB are hard to discriminate against, so they’ve pulled the T out,” she said.

To Welch and his fellow members on the Pastor Council, though, the group’s positions are is well in line with the teachings of the Bible. And even if the death of the “bathroom bill” in the special session represents the loss of a single battle, the broader war continues. 

“This is not over,” Riggle said.

Disclosure: The Texas Freedom Network has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors is available here.

Life is en suite as avocado grows ripe for return to UK's bathrooms | Money

Read article : Life is en suite as avocado grows ripe for return to UK's bathrooms | Money

Everything has its day - and just when you think it's had its day, it has its day again. So it is with bathrooms. Just when we've all succumbed to ubiquitous white porcelain, the coloured bathroom suite makes a comeback. And about time. Soon we will rue the day we consigned the avocado sink, bath and toilet to the skip.

Lefroy Brooks, purveyors of 'glamorous' period-style sanitaryware and fittings, is launching the fabulous Bel Air range in January. Its American retro-style curvy suites are complemented by rocket-shaped taps redolent of 1950s sci-fi comics.

'We've all had enough of so-called property experts telling us we have to keep our homes bland and uninspiring on the premise that plain will resell,' says designer Christo Lefroy Brooks.

Here at last is the pink bathroom suite I've been dreaming of for years. Bel Air chinaware also comes in cream, green or blue. It will cost £450 for a sink (£630 with a chrome stand) and £360 for the taps. I'd better start saving.

Our new taste for excess would appear to extend to the number of bathrooms we have, as increasing numbers of people carve up their homes to create en-suite bathrooms. But, however many we have, our reluctance to espouse the bidet means we are still considered filthy barbarians by our continental friends.

Susan Murphy lives in a rented two-bedroom flat in Maidstone, with an en-suite as well as a main bathroom. 'I hate it,' she says. 'It's such a waste of space. We're looking to buy a flat, but all the new-builds we've looked at have two bathrooms. Why would a couple need two bathrooms?'

But estate agent Christine Penny of Hamptons in Bath says: 'Providing you have enough space, an en-suite dedicated to the main bedroom will make your home more saleable. A two-bedroom flat without an en-suite is really a one-bedroom flat.'

That's certainly what the developers seem to think. Maybe they are catering more for divorced dads or buy-to-let investors than for young couples.

Although extra bathrooms could add to the value of your home, it may not work if this gives you tiny bedrooms. Rather than dividing up a large airy bedroom and ruining the lovely cornices, you could put a bathtub in the corner.

If you are really rebellious (and have a fat wallet) you could escape from ceramics altogether. Boldly shaped bathtubs and basins from Finnish company Durat are made of partly recycled polyester and come in a choice of 60 colours. A bath will set you back £2,200 to£3,740.

Bathing innovation will soon bring us a shower cubicle you can put in your bedroom without ending up with puddles on the floor. Graham Thomson is patenting a design for a shower cubicle based on the principals of powder-coating - the method used for spray-painting cars. On entering the Recharge Shower, you step on a mat that gives you an electrical charge. A mist-like spray of water is then attracted to your body. No mess, no wastage of water.

But for those sick of having their pampering toiletries filched, and determined to create their own little walled-off retreat, the new trend is for space-saving wall-hung chinaware. The sophisticated concealed plumbing required may be worth it for the space freed up below to house shelves, racks or cabinets.

Laufen does a good range of wall-hung asymmetrical and corner washbasins, including a countertop model that can be cut to fit awkward corners. But they do not come cheap. A Loft washbasin including a 'base station' (cabinet with drawer) will cost you £1,300. Laufen also produces Il bagno Alessi bathroom porcelain in innovative bulbous shapes with Wondergliss coating to prevent limescale (washbasin from £530). Unfortunately, it only comes in traditional white.

Ventilation is a key consideration when creating a new bathroom, especially if there is no window. To prevent mould and other damp-related problems, it is vital to install sufficiently powerful extractor fans.

Vent-Axia has a good technical advice line. Its top-of-the-range ventilation device is the ingenious Air Minder heat recovery system (from about £1,000), which extracts old air and pumps in fresh. The ducts cross so that heat being sucked out is blown back in again, thus saving on heating bills.

Is water the next 'drug' for Mexico’s cartels?

Read article : Is water the next 'drug' for Mexico’s cartels?

Aug 14, 2017

What it's like when narcos run your privatized water system, Tamara Pearson reports.

A pipa, or water truck, filling up the underground well for shops in Puebla city. Credit: Tamara Pearson

It's rainy season here in Puebla, Mexico, and water is dripping through my concrete roof, taking chunks of plaster and paint from the ceiling with it. Ironically, we still don't have enough running water to shower everyday. Other people here have no running water at all, and our drainage system is in a state of utter abandonment.

Yet we all pay 10 times the rates of the rest of Mexico, because here in Puebla – unlike the rest of the country – our water is privatized. What's more, the men at the helm of the consortium that run it are a collection of corrupt millionaire and billionaire businessmen who have allegedly laundered money for some of the region's biggest drug cartels.

Throughout much of Mexico large, usually black, tinacos (water tanks) dot the roof tops of our concrete slums and towns. A lot of us have running water for just 15-30 minutes, twice a week, so we fill up the tinacos to cover the rest of the time. Many of the older tanks are made of asbestos, while the newer ones are a solid black plastic. A friend who lives around the corner has only a large container of water in his bathroom, while those in wealthier areas often have underground storage and much more regular water.

Most of us, however, have just 400 litres of water to last the household a week. In the US, a single person consumes that amount per day. In my home, we wash our clothes in a bucket, recycle that water to flush the toilet, collect the water from the shower for flushing, and only flush around once or twice a day. Showers are quick and had every three days or so.

My water bill is 630 pesos per month, while in neighboring Tlaxcala state, people pay 50 pesos per month. Everyone here has stories of being unfairly charged for water, or of going without any water for a year or two – despite constant complaints to the water company, Aguas de Puebla.

I was duly awarded a debt of 115,000 pesos when I first moved into my tiny apartment, located in the poor side of inner-city Puebla. For perspective, that's nearly four years’ worth of minimum wage. I spent four months battling the water company to get that corrected – spending 45 minutes each way on public transport to talk to them directly in their head office, and ringing them on a daily basis. Each time, they asked me to bring in more documents, placing the paperwork burden on me, instead of on themselves as the ones who made the mistake. They gave me excuses and promises that it would be resolved in three weeks’ time and to come back then, and even redirected me to other departments – ‘I'll put you through to water meters, maybe they can help with your case.’

Ultimately, some firm phone calls to the head of public relations of the company, with support from an incredible journalist friend, saw me meeting directly with PR, finally, the figure was fixed in their system in a matter of minutes. At the time, I put it down to the bureaucratic, inhumane habits of private corporations, but later I would realize just how much more sinister the problem was.

Water tanks on the rooftops of inner-city Puebla. Credit: Tamara Pearson

Illegal privatization

‘Baja California was the first state in Mexico to plan to privatize its water, but protests and resistance stopped that. Puebla was the second state,’ Fernando, an indigenous water activist in the Peoples Against the Privatization of Water group told me. He asked that I not include his last name, given the arrest warrants pending on a number of water activists, and the risk involved.

In 2013, the Puebla state government justified the privatization of water by arguing that the incoming company would invest the money necessary to improve the service, eliminate leaking pipes that saw 30 per cent of all water lost, and expand the reach of piped water. It passed the Water Law, that would allow the new company to set prices without oversight and to hire other private companies, and put out a call for bids in September that year. The government awarded the bid to Concessions Integrales, also known as Aguas de Puebla, three days before the consortium was actually formed and legally able to participate in a bid for tender. Though the governor had talked about a 30 year deal, that was extended to 60 years.

Narco business

No one imagined that one of the main companies behind Enrique Peña Nieto's presidential election campaign in 2012 would ultimately end up running Puebla's water supply system, in a consortium made up of other corrupt and scandalous companies.

Monex, Epccor, and Grupo Financiero Interacciones are the main companies involved in Aguas de Puebla, though reports of their exact shares in ownership vary. Monex itself told the press that it owned a ‘third’, but added that exactly who has how many shares was a ‘banking secret’.

Monex made news at the time for running Peña Nieto's campaign strategy of buying votes through the distribution of pre-paid cards, and funneling money to his campaigning fund. Reports suggest that this money, however, likely came from the Juarez Cartel – one of the oldest and most powerful criminal organizations in the country.

Mexico's election court ultimately ruled that there hadn't been any fraud, but many are skeptical of this ruling because Mexico's courts are known for their extremely high levels of corruption and political interference. Additionally, it wasn't the first time that Monex had allegedly been involved with major drug cartels. An investigation conducted by newspaper Reforma found a working relationship with the Arellano Feliz cartel in 2003, and with the Colombian cartel, Valle del Norte, in 2006. In 2008, Spanish authorities found that the Beltran Leyva cartel had changed some 78 million euros through Monex and a company called Intercam.

Epccor is owned by Juan Gutierrez, who is also president of Aguas de Puebla, and who also owned the company Gutsa, a key financial backer of the 1994 PRI presidential campaign (Peña Nieto's party). Gutierrez's companies have been repeatedly fined for mismanagement. Epccor, with it connections in the government, regularly receives contracts for public works like hospitals, roads, and airports; consistently spends more than it originally declared in its budget, and delays completion by years. The most recent case was a hospital which has spent nine years so far under construction, and still isn't finished.

Grupo Financiero Interacciones, run by the infamously corrupt and excessive rich Hank family, has strong links to the PRI and to the Juarez Cartel. Grandfather Hank, Carlos Hank Rhon, is a billionaire, and his family has been the subject of numerous reports of drug laundering on a massive scale, as well as assisting cartels with drug shipments, and large-scale public corruption. A World Policy Report from 1995 went so far as to describe Carlos Hank as the "primary intermediary between the multinational drug trafficking enterprises and the Mexican political system,” and Hank has been investigated for money laundering by Mexican, Swiss, and French judges.

One key strategy Hank is alleged to have used, was to buy food products with the money cartels made from selling cocaine in the US. Hank's companies had a monopoly on these food products, which they then sold back in Mexico. The Hank family has also colluded with Mexican state authorities to gain permits for their rooster fighting and horse racing, and to get significant debts pardoned. Son Jorge Hank Rhon has also been accused of using the gambling business for drug trafficking links and to launder money.

An Aguas de Puebla office. Credit: Tamara Pearson

A broken system

With corrupt narcos running Puebla’s water, it's no surprise that the system is beyond dysfunctional. People have accused the company of charging for non-existing debts, of water supply issues and random bill increases, and of charging up to 3,000 pesos (a good month's wage) for meters to be installed. Some areas are supplied with contaminated water, whole suburbs have gone without water for weeks, the company charges to check people's broken connections, and people report that their meters aren't working but the company refuses to repair them and keeps charging an incorrect rate. People facing errors like mine tend to wait a year for a resolution, if they get any at all.

In May this year, communities from the south of the city protested and closed roads after going weeks without water, while Aguas de Puebla still charged them for it. They said that when they did get water, it ‘smelt bad and was yellow,’ while other communities went for three months without water because the company couldn't be bothered to fix the pump.

Businesses have also complained about large bills, pointing out at least six companies in the city that have monthly bills that amount to millions in pesos, ‘without a clear explanation why,’ they told a press conference.

Internally, workers at Aguas de Puebla have also complained stating that they were threatened with being fired on a daily basis and weren't paid promised bonuses. They said they were told not to inform people how rates were calculated, leading to people paying more than they should and they also claimed that the company had cut the petrol budget for company vehicles by 60 per cent, making it difficult for workers to go out and do repairs.

Aguas de Puebla does roll out the red carpet for some of its clients, however. ‘Many years ago, governor Mario Marin signed an agreement with Nealtican and Santa Maria Acuexcomac – towns in the valley of the Popo volcano – for their water,’ Fernando said. In exchange, the towns got sports courts and roads, but their good quality water is delivered by Aguas de Puebla to the wealthy part of town – Angelopolis, while ‘the worst water goes to the poor suburbs, where there's scarcity.’

Jugs of water for sale. Credit: Tamara Pearson

Nothing lives without water

‘We can live without petrol, without electricity, but not without water. The government and the companies it colludes with think to themselves, if petrol is hugely profitable, how much money can you make from water?’ Fernando explained.

Indeed, even before the narco companies took over our water, it was already a big-profit industry and essentially privatized. Those facing water shortages, and those who can't drink their piped water, are forced to buy bottled water from private companies.

In 2014, Mexico was the largest consumer of bottled water in the world with almost US$8 billion in revenue that year and 234 liters consumed on average per person annually. The companies dominating the bottled water industry here are Danone (47 per cent), Coca-Cola (19.4 per cent) and Epura (7.1 per cent). Many people buy water in 20 litre jugs, or garafones, and in that case, small, local water providers account for around half of the market.

People lacking piped water will also pay pipas – large trucks that look a bit like tanker trucks – to pump water into their roof-based plastic water tanks. In Mexico City, some 40 per cent of water distributed this way is sold illegally.

The bottled water companies have also waged marketing campaigns to promote distrust in the quality of piped water.

Across Mexico, some 9 million people have no water pipes in their homes and a further 13 million people have piping, but the water is contaminated and leads to skin conditions and gastrointestinal infections. Seventy-five percent of the population live with water scarcity, but big business won't be offering a hand any time soon.

Tamara Pearson is a long time journalist based in Latin America, alternative pedagogy teacher, and author of The Butterfly Prison. She blogs at Resistance Words.