This week, Houston voters rejected, by a landslide, an equal rights ordinance that would have provided more protections for gay and transgender people.
Emily Bazelon, New York Times Magazine correspondent and panelist on Slate's Political Gabfest, explains how referendums can or cannot take away our protection rights.
Here's the @nytimes editorial piece Brian and @emilybazelon are referencing - 'In Houston, Hate Trumped Fairness': https://t.co/hotQcWDvzC
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) November 6, 2015
.@BrianLehrer Your confusion is in mistaking "democracy" with a democratic/representative republic. 2 wolves & 1 sheep may vote on lunch.
— Eddie Willers (@99twoot) November 6, 2015
@BrianLehrer strikes me that transgender rights advocates talk about gender as a spectrum, but bathrooms remain binary.
— Nut Milk King (@gvanullen) November 6, 2015
@BrianLehrer The "bathroom issue" has been used for decades: Phyllis Schlafly used it to defeat the ERA in the '70s.
— RoughAcres/RLMcKee (@RoughAcres) November 6, 2015
@mjfrombuffalo @BrianLehrer I have to say I don't get the uproar over this. There are doors on the stalls - why do people care so much?!
— Julia Dahl (@juliadahl) November 6, 2015
@BrianLehrer She eventually relied on one of the two single-person bathrooms three floors down.
— MJfromBuffalo (@mjfrombuffalo) November 6, 2015
"there are states where these protections are in place and everyone is still going to bathroom in peace" -- @emilybazelon on @BrianLehrer
— Rebecca Carroll (@rebel19) November 6, 2015