As many of you may already know, the city of Plano, TX passed a gay rights ordinance back in December. This was significant for several reasons -- while several of the major cities in Texas have such ordinances, Plano was the first suburban city to do so. In addition, it is a generally affluent suburb of Dallas, and as such it politically tilts to the Republican party.
In any event, it rapidly evolved that the so-called Christian conservatives collected signatures on petitions to force a vote to repeal the ordinance, since we all know that fairness, decency, and equality are profoundly un-Christian values in the minds of these people.
Well, the good news is that the city has found the petitions to be invalid!
Here's a link to newspaper articles regarding the city's rejection of the petitions:
Plano Star Courier coverage of petition decision
Dallas Morning News coverage
From the Morning News:
Plano officials announced Friday that petitions targeting the LGBT rights ordinance are invalid, possibly ending an effort that could have put the controversial measure to a citywide vote.
Plano City Manager Bruce Glasscock said the petitions contained false information and failed to comply with city and state requirements.
“I don’t think misrepresentation is a technicality,” Glasscock said. “That’s an integrity and ethics issue.”
There were multiple reasons to reject the petitions, ranging from technical (failure to include a column in the petitions for people signing to list the county in which they reside) to quite substantive (misrepresenting the contents of the ordinance).
From the Star Courier:
According to the city, the petition contained false information regarding the Equal Rights Ordinance, claiming it regulates bathrooms. The ordinance does not regulate bathrooms. By making this false representation, the equal rights petition asked signees to repeal an ordinance that does not exist, according to a Plano press release
To put it a little more bluntly, the petitioners flat out lied about what is included in the ordinance. Apparently they didn't believe that they would get enough signatures if they told the truth about what the ordinance really did, so they started making up crap.
Again, it's those fine Christian values that make it okay to violate the commandment about "bearing false witness" when you're on God's side.
Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for them, in this case their willingness to lie helped out our side by providing one more reason for the city to invalidate the petitions.
Another lie from the opponents of the ordinance (Morning News quoted here):
But others felt they could be forced to choose between obeying the ordinance or their religious beliefs. “The ordinance poses serious threats to the First Amendment right of freedom of speech and religious liberty,” the Liberty Institute said in a statement.
Never mind the fact that gay rights ordinances have been around in other cities (and even entire states) for decades without ever being found to violate the First Amendment.
Needless to say, it is entirely possible that the Liberty Institute or the other homophobes behind this petition will sue the city, although it also sounds like the city has a pretty strong case for dismissing the petitions. But right now, there is a similar legal battle going on in Houston, which had thrown out a petition effort to repeal Houston's gay rights ordinance as a result of a large number of the signatures in Houston being fraudulent. The opponents of the ordinance sued and that case is still in court.
In any event, it's one more step closer to bringing another piece of Texas into the 21st Century. At this rate, I'm optimistic that we'll make it into the 21st Century before the start of the 22nd Century, anyway.
One other note: this is a very personal issue for me, as I've lived in Plano for 21 years and was pleased to see my city become the first suburb in the state to pass a gay rights ordinance. It really is a big deal to those of us who live here, and I can only hope that it will eventually prove an inspiration for the surrounding suburbs.