Bexar County Commissioners Court today unanimously approved a new Non Discrimination Ordinance that protects people based on 'gender identity and gender expression,' Nws Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"We are here to turn the page on discrimination against people," Commissioner Tommy Calvert said. "When you discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation, you are showing the limits of God's love. And who are you to limit God's love?"
The move adds those protections, as well as protections on the basis of political affiliation and genetic information to standard protections on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, age, and veteran status.
The proposals were fought by family values groups."The Bexar County Commissioners Court is continuing to provide immoral leadership," said Patrick von Dohlen of the San Antonio Family Association. "Just as the Court did four years ago when it condoned co-habitation as a means to sneak in domestic partner benefits for same sex couples, the court is now legitimizing every fictional gender identity and creating special classes out of thin air."
Von Dohlen added that the Commissioners are 'making these changes at the expense of the taxpayers of Bexar County, and with as much discernment as a late night drunken Whataburger run (pants optional),' a dig at Commissioner Kevin Wolff's 2016 DWI arrest at a Whataburger drive-through.
There were also charges that the proposal is 'Un-Christian,' and will lead to men claiming to be transgender to use women's restrooms and assault women and girls. That was the argument made in the last session of the Legislature in support of the so called 'Bathroom Bill,' despite the fact that such crimes do not occur at any significant level, and there is nothing to stop men from entering women's restrooms today, and assaulting women, in a bathroom or anyplace else, is a felony.
"I thought we had moved beyond this, I thought our nation was healing," County Judge Nelson Wolff said. "I guess I'm wrong."
"I don't know if any of these opponents know what people who are gay or transgendered has ever experienced when it comes to discrimination," Calvert. "But the God that I know walks with them, and holds their hand, and loves them."Calvert said this is about 'equal protection under the law.'