Walking With Integrity: March 2017

Friday, March 10, 2017

The Restroom Wars

This week, the Texas Senate considered Senate Bill 6 which is commonly referred to as the Anti Transgender Bathroom Bill. The bill would require all persons to go to the restroom according to the designation on their birth certificate. Since making a gender marker change on a birth certificate is difficult in the best of circumstances and impossible in other cases, it would mean that the Transgender community would be required to go into restrooms that do not equate with their physical presentation.

Despite an overwhelming number of witnesses who gave highly compelling testimony against the bill, it passed out of committee around 5am on Wednesday morning. This was after nearly 20 hours of oral testimony. The battle is not over. The bill now goes to the full Senate, where it is likely to pass. Hopefully, it will be more difficult to pass it through the Texas House of Representatives.

It is important to know that the two Co Conveners of Integrity Houston, Rev Lisa Hunt and myself (Mx S Wayne Mathis) testified against the bill during the Senate’s State Affairs Committee hearings. My own objections were supported by the Board of Integrity Houston having authorized me to convey their official objections to the bill.

The day was filled with anguish, compounded by the often open hostility from several Senators and their invited witnesses towards members of the LGBTQIA community. What gave me strength throughout the day, evening and well into the night was the support of MY community and my church. Both Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and House of Deputies President Gay Clark Jennings have publicly stated their opposition to this legislation.

Integrity Houston wishes to say to the LGBTQIA community that we have and we will stand WITH you. We will support you in the capitol and we will support you throughout the state. As our buttons at diocesan council stated, “I’ll go with you” to the restroom that best meets your needs.

S Wayne Mathis and Rev. Lisa Hunt, Co-Conveners of Integrity Houston

S Wayne Mathis

Vice President of Local Affairs

Blog Faerie Commandments

Thou shalt be a current Integrity member; for as the
Psalmist says, “No good thing will YHWH withhold from those who walk with integrity.”
Thou shalt post legitimate news and public opinion
from recognized sources; for few blogs are fonts of true wisdom.
Thou shalt not post gossip; for it is serious sin that nobody preaches about anymore.
Thou shalt not include thine own opinions in posts; but thou mayest post thine own opinions using the comments feature.
Thou shalt not post hate speech nor engage in personal attacks against thy neighbor—neither in posts nor in comments. Love thy neighbor as thyself.
Though shalt post items that emphasize the LGBT-positive side of issues whenever possible; for there are more than enough blogs devoted to denegrating us.
Though shalt mostly post items dealing with LGBT
equality in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion; but thou mayest post some LGBT secular news and LGBT news from other faith traditions.
Thou shalt not post copyrighted material in its
entirety; for it is abhorrent to the United States government. Rather, thou shalt post an excerpt or summary with a link to the original source.
Thou shalt cite the original source (author,
title, affiliation, publisher, date) of a post whenever possible; thus may readers direct their rants and raves in the right direction.
Thou shalt be wise with the quantity of material thou posteth to the blog; for the reader unsubscription rate is inversely proportional to the number of daily posts.
Thou shalt replace shaped quotation marks and
apostrophies (“ ” ’) with straight equivalents (" " ') whenever possible; for shaped characters are not supported by all e-mail servers.
Though mayest embed YouTube and Google video clips in a post but thou shalt also provide a hyperlink to the clip; for the clip itself may be stripped out of the e-mail version.
Thou shalt include graphics with thine posts when possible; for plain text is really boring.