Victory in Maryland - Anti-gay referendum is stopped!!!!

Everyone is either losing their minds over the election or getting into the act of losing their minds.

Our friend Peter LaBarbera (who never really had that much of a mind to begin with) has been posting sporadically and those posts are attacking the Huffington Post. Apparently Peter is trying to spin a "they are after Sarah Palin because they want to bash Christians" line.

I think he is pissed cause the Hurricane Gustav stopped Southern Decadence from taking place.

Well in the midst of the prognosticating and nailbiting over polls, a bit of good news just took place in Maryland:

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) applauded a Maryland Appeal Court ruling today which dismissed attempts to roll back landmark protections for transgender residents in Montgomery County, Maryland, by way of a November ballot initiative. The court's unanimous ruling ends a campaign by anti-transgender activists to strip the county's civil rights law of protections based on gender identity. The law was amended in November 2007 and, because of today's ruling, will now be enacted to include the transgender community.

"The anti-transgender campaign in Montgomery County was based on bigotry and fueled by misinformation," said Jody M. Huckaby, executive director of PFLAG. "It was being forced onto the ballot with no regard for state law or the fundamental rights of our transgender neighbors and allies. Today's ruling sends a clear message that opponents of equality are not above the law, and our transgender loved ones are not below it. Montgomery County's civil rights law offers important protections to transgender and gender-variant people. We join our allies in Maryland and the transgender community in celebrating its long over-due enactment."

I blogged about this referendum drive before. You will remember that those pushing for it was able to get enough signatures by falsely claiming that the law will allow men to go into women's lockerrooms and restrooms. The proponents said that all the men had to do was say "I feel like a woman."

This was the same group that organized a phony moral panic by claiming that a man dressed as a woman had entered an local lockerroom gym. Of course no one saw the incident but it caused a lot of controversy.

In this crazy world, it's nice to see good triumph over bullshit.