Ike Writes to Baltimore
Not much to add to this (transcribed from fuzzy pdf, might have errors)...
Isiah Leggett
County Executive
The Honorable Vicki Almond
Council Chair
Baltimore County Council
400 Washington Avenue
Towson, Maryland 21204
February 8, 2012
Dear Councilmember Almond:
Thank you for your letter concerning Bill 3·12 / Human Relations as it relates with my experiences as Montgomery County Executive.
I had the honor of signing Montgomery County Bill 23·07 on November 21,2007, making my county the second jurisdiction in Maryland to provide comprehensive civil rights protection to the transgender and gender nonconforming communities. Last year we were joined by Howard County last year, bringing the percentage of state residents covered by such protections to 32 percent.
In addition, last December the U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, ruled that discrimination against transgender and gender nonconforming individuals is considered sex discrimination, and is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
As you are all responsible for the health and welfare of your county residents, let me state without hesitation that nothing untoward has occurred in Montgomery County over the past four years. Contrary to all the fear-mongering of the opposition, none of which is or has ever been based in fact, life in Montgomery County has improved for everyone since that time. As County Police Chief Manger pointed out in a letter to Councilmember Quirk last month, the allegations made against the County with respect to assaults perpetrated over the past four years by "cross-dressing men" in women's restrooms are completely without merit.
We look forward to the day when all our state's residents are free from discrimination. We are proud to have had our County move closer to that goal, and stand by you in your efforts to do the same for your great county.
Sincerely,
Isiah Leggett
County Executive
CC: Baltimore County Councilmembers
Kevin Kamenetz, County Executive
posted by JimK at 9:41 AM
9 Comments:
Thank you, Mr. Leggett.
Peace,
Cynthia
Good for Ike, and good for all of us.
Very well done!
Leggett sounds like a fool.
What the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta does has nothing to do with what happens in the 4th Circuit. It is not compelling.
If the 4th would rely on this decision, this has nothing to do with gender identity based on feelings, whatever that is. Look what Leggett alleges the court said. It was based on SEX Discrimination. No need for the law to add gender identity.
The council in Baltimore County are probably laughing.
Ike not only sounds like a fool. . .he is a fool.
A fool with a $60,000 personal
bathroom in his office (paid for
by the taxpayers). Of course
he doesn't care what goes on in
the public bathrooms.
Take a hike, Ike.
Catholic Bishop Nickless advocates violent opposition to preventative medicine for women
GOP Representative Issa allows no women to testify at his hearing on mandating preventative care for women in health care reform.
Let’s not mince words here. Today the Republican party made it clear they not only know nothing about women’s health care, they don’t care.
The contempt for women was palpable during Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) sham of an oversight hearing on whether or not keeping access to contraception available for women was an attack on religious liberty. Here’s a hint: not even Justice Scalia thinks it is. Beside the utter lack of a voice, of parity in participation let alone diversity of opinion, accessing birth control was likened to serving pork at a kosher deli from a witnessed deemed qualified to offer testimony while a female Catholic law student was told she didn’t have anything to add to the proceedings.
Then came Rick Santorum funder and billionaire investor Foster Friess letting MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell know that this whole birth control debate was really know big deal because, back in Friess’s day women just kept their legs shut.
Here’s the exchange:
Mitchell: Do you have any concerns about some of his comments on social issues, contraception, about women in combat, and whether that would hurt his general election campaign would he be the nominee?
Friess: I get such a chuckle when these things come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed, we have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about, and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex. I think it says something about our culture. We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are. And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s such inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.
Mitchell: Excuse me, I’m just trying to catch my breath from that, Mr. Friess, frankly.
So there you have it, ladies. If you sluts just kept your legs shut we wouldn’t have to bring these men up to Capitol Hill to testify how your sluttiness is impeding their religious freedoms. I tried to be more delicate and artful in the summary but really, the Republicans have taken us far past delicate and artful and too much is on the line to worry about the niceties any longer.
Pro-choice Republicans are begging their party to drop this fight over contraception before it’s too late. Turning to a discussion about access to birth control will be nothing short of a disaster, they say.
The new and unexpected war over contraception may not end up as only a battle between the White House and the Republican party. It could end up as a fight between the GOP and itself. As we saw during the 2011’s push to defund Planned Parenthood — when some Republican Senators rebuked their colleagues in the House for attacking the organization — Republicans on Capitol Hill do not speak with one voice on matters of women’s health. Now, as Speaker John Boehner seemingly prepares to turn the House GOP’s attention to contraception, pro-choice Republicans are warning that the GOP may become the next Komen For The Cure.
“I think this week’s outrage over the Komen decision should be a warning to the Republican party about how quickly there was a mass outrage over further and further attacks on general women’s health,” Kellie Ferguson, executive director of Republican Majority for choice, told me Wednesday. “You could see the same backlash on attacks on contraception.”
Ferguson calls the Republican rhetoric on contraception “crossing the line” — taking the discussion away from choice issues (where Republicans can find some broader, if still national minority constituency) and into the realm of the fringy extreme.
“For the last number of years, we in the pro-choice community in general — and we specifically as Republicans — have been saying as this pandering to a sort of social conservative faction of voters continues, you’re going to see the line pushed further and further and further,” she said. “And we’re now crossing the line from discussion of when we should regulate abortion to when we should now regulate legal doctor-prescribed medications like birth control, which is woven in the fabric of society as an acceptable medication.”
She pointed to widely-reported polling showing that a majority of Americans — and a majority of Catholics — support the White House policy and urged her party to take a step back before it’s too late.
A high-profile debate over contraception will only serve to alienate voters and deny Republicans the White House in the fall, Ferguson suggested.
“There’s a big leap between people who vote at a Republican caucus and the majority that will vote in a general election,” she said. “I think pigeon-holing the party as against women’s health in general not only hurts the party, but it hurts our key candidates.”
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