The debate over the proposed nondiscrimination ordinance in San Antonio appears headed to a possible conclusion when the city council votes on Thursday.
As expected, the religious right has engaged in a great deal of misinformation and fear mongering during the debate, either at public hearings, in the press, via social media or through Ken Mercer’s email address book. No surprise there, unfortunately.
One of those leading the charge to smear the LGBT community has been Texas Values, lobby arm of the Plano-based, religious-right group Liberty Institute. We’ve been wondering what exactly they mean by Texas Values. Apparently, one of their values is stretching the truth.
PolitiFact Texas today took Texas Values to task for their blatant misrepresentations of the nondiscrimination ordinance’s supposed “bathroom” provision, which was characterized in a Texas Values email like so: “San Antonio Ordinance to Allow Men into Women’s Restrooms.” Here’s the verdict:
Our ruling
Texas Values’ email said, “San Antonio Ordinance to Allow Men into Women’s Restrooms.”
We found nothing in law that says San Antonio men can’t go into women’s restrooms now, or vice versa. The City of San Antonio and the councilman who proposed the measure said it won’t change any bathroom policies that are now in place. The city attorney said in a newspaper commentary that an appeals court decision means a San Antonio business owner would still be able to prevent someone from entering a bathroom, regardless of that person’s gender identity.
We rate the group’s statement as False.
You can read the entire PolitiFact piece here.
Of course it’s false. None of these lunatics would know the truth even if it bit them square on the butt.