Colorado's New Law

Colorado's New Law

I saw these disturbing news accounts, and found myself wondering, can this be true? From May 29, 2008 World Net Daily:

With today's signature on SB200, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, has eliminated gender-specific restrooms and locker rooms statewide, giving woman and girls reason to fear being confronted by predators, cross-dressers "or even a homosexual or heterosexual male," according to a critic.

The state's new "transgender nondiscrimination" bill makes it illegal to deny a person access to public accommodations, including restrooms and locker rooms, based on gender identity or the "perception" of gender identity.

Ritter signed the Expanded Discrimination Prohibitions, approved by the legislature, with this definition:

"'Sexual orientation' means a person's orientation toward heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or transgender status or another person's perception thereof."

"Who would have believed that the Colorado state legislature and its governor would have made it fully legal for men to enter and use women’s restrooms and locker-room facilities without notice or explanation?" said James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, the Christian publishing and broadcast ministry in Colorado Springs.

The bill, SB200, is here. It adds sexual orientation to the already pretty substantial list of prohibited forms of discrimination, and indicates that it applies to:

any place of business engaged in any sales to the public and any place offering services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to the public, including but not limited to any business offering wholesale or retail sales to the public; any place to eat, drink, sleep, or rest, or any combination thereof; any sporting or recreational area and facility; any public transportation facility; a barber shop, bathhouse, swimming pool, bath, steam or massage parlor, gymnasium, or other establishment conducted to serve the health, appearance, or physical condition of a person; a campsite or trailer camp; a dispensary, clinic, hospital, convalescent home, or other institution for the sick, ailing, aged, or infirm; a mortuary, undertaking parlor, or cemetery; an educational institution; or any public building, park, arena, theater, hall, auditorium, museum, library, exhibit, or public facility of any kind whether indoor or outdoor.

I can't see anything here that specifically requires restrooms to be available without discrimination--but I also don't see anything that exempts restrooms, locker rooms, or other traditionally single-sex facilities from this law. I don't see any lawful way for a business to tell a cross-dressing man that he can't use the women's restroom, or the women's locker room.

It is rather amazing how rapidly Colorado has turned around. In the 1990s, a majority of the voters passed an initiative specifically to prohibit the state and local governments from passing such laws--and now the Colorado legislature has passed such a law. I never cease to be amazed at the amount of power that 3% of the population is able to exert.

Ordinarily, stuff like this is imposed by the judiciary--not the legislature, because Christians still have enough influence to block it. It's a shame that evangelical Christians (who are about 30% of the population) aren't committed to their position as strongly as homosexuals are committed to theirs.