Parallel Lies from our friend Peter LaBarbera

In keeping with the steady drumbeat of claiming that legislation protecting lgbts from discrimination would lead to the "attack of the she-males" in our nation's showers and bathrooms comes this tale from our friend Peter LaBarbera and Americans for Truth (in name only) :

The Transg-ENDA Agenda: Man in a Purple Pants Suit Invades the Ladies Room in Md

By Bunny Galladora

The hearing room of the Judicial Committee in Annapolis, Maryland, was overflowing with all sorts of unusual looking people hours before the hearing on a bill to add “sexual orientation” to the list of protected categories was to begin. It would be a very long day. After many people had testified giving their various positions on the issue, the Judicial Committee took a break.

Conrae Fortlage and I left the hearing room to “freshen up” in the ladies’ restroom. When it came time to wash our hands, I finished quickly and waited for Conrae inside the bathroom by the door, a few steps away. Conrae lingered slowly, applying lipstick and fiddling with her hair. She seemed to be staring in the mirror for an unusual amount of time. I paid little attention to the person dressed in a purple ladies pants suit with a white blouse standing next to Conrae — or to Conrae’s behavior which was out of character for her, but instead my thoughts were on the testimony I would be giving soon.

As we left the ladies’ room, the door shutting behind us, Conrae began to tell me that the person standing beside her in the bathroom was actually a man. Conrae said she first noticed that the person was unusually tall for a woman, then, while looking in the mirror, she had focused on his unusually large Adam’s apple — and other features normally found in a male. She noticed that the person was wearing a woman’s wig.

Sounds spooky, don't it.

Well there are a few things about this story that just don't sound right to me.

The alleged incident seems to have taken place in Maryland during a judicial hearing about anti-discrimination protection for gays and lesbians but author, Bunny Galladora, cannot remember the exact year:

Neither Galladora nor Fortlage can recall the year of the incident, but it was between 1999 and 2001, when Maryland’s legislature passed a “sexual orientation” nondiscrimination bill, later signed into law by the state’s Democratic governor, Parris Glendening.

The only thing I can think of is how "very appropriate" for this incident to be recounted during the time in which Congress will be talking about ENDA. Indeed, LaBarbera prefaces the story with the following:

When a society raises gender confusion (men in dresses) and its cousin, homosexuality, to the level of “civil rights,” it’s time to recognize that this nation is in a state of moral decline unheard of in our history.

So did this incident take place? Maybe, but until I see further proof, I will doubt its validity. The story reminds me of tactics done in the past.

Remember when Anita Bryant was attempting to repeal a gay rights ordinance in the 1970s This is what she said:

“homosexuals cannot reproduce—so they must recruit . . . the youth of America.”

Or how about when Paul Cameron was working against a gay rights ordinance in Nebraska in 1982. He told the tale of a four-year-old getting castrated in a bathroom attack by a gay man. When the police investigated and found the story to be false, Cameron said that a "friend" told him the story.

Back then, people did have a fear that gay men would try to harm children. It's safe to say that many Americans are less ignorant about gays and children.

But visibility in the transgender community is relatively new. So telling that story of a man in the lady's room does serve a purpose.

But not a very good one.