Earlier in the week, she penned a piece for Washington D.C.'s Roll Call about ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act), including mentioning negative anecdotes about transgender teachers in the school system- anecdotes which were fully refuted.
Lafferty's piece caught the attention of Dr. Jillian T. Weiss, an associate professor of law and society at Ramapo College of New Jersey and associate editor at the Bilerico Project, an LGBT political blog.
Weiss wrote Roll Call and was invited to pen a response, which she did. And it was an excellent response:
The Traditional Values Coalition is an anti-gay hate group on the watch list of the Southern Poverty Law Center. TVC raises money by scaring people about gruesome but unlikely events that will result from prohibiting discrimination. Its claims demean gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and our lives and do nothing to help this Congress address the high level of job discrimination that puts many of us in the unemployment line.
ENDA is designed to redress the persistent job discrimination levied against people in this country based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, problems demonstrated by the many studies cited by experts in their fields at Congressional hearings on ENDA. Further, both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association support passage of ENDA because ending discrimination is such an important goal.
So with the ball in Lafferty's court, so to speak, what do you think she would do - write a detailed refutation of Dr. Weiss's piece or attack her personally?
Let the headline of her answer piece on the TVC web page be your guide:
'Transgender' Man Attacks TVC
That's right. Lafferty chose to make a personal attack on Dr. Weiss instead of refuting her piece on ENDA:
Dr. Jillian Weiss is a man who has lived as a woman since 1997. This is a truly troubled individual. Whether he has actually gone through a complete surgical procedure to remove his genitals is a mystery. He may be living as a she-male hybrid. However, readers would never know he is a transgender based on his published bio.
Lafferty's piece continues the offensive attack, making special note to use the incorrect pronoun of "he" when referring to Dr. Weiss.
So the irony is that in the same piece where Lafferty expresses pride in being called an anti-gay hate group, she demonstrates why the designation is right on the mark. Her comments were filthy, immature, and totally un-Christian.
I've never met Dr Weiss but her credentials and writing speak for themselves and frankly if she is the example that Lafferty wants to push as to why parents should be afraid of ENDA, then Lafferty should be careful.
Folks on her side of the argument are going to think that she is working for the lgbt community.
