A bill that would forbid local governments in Florida from passing ordinances protecting transgender people who use single-sex bathrooms cleared its first hurdle Wednesday in a 9-4 vote of the House Civil Justice Subcommittee. The party-line vote, with Republicans in favor, ended 100 minutes of impassioned discussion and testimony that ranged from emotional to acidic to bitter, with occasional interjections from the audience that forced Kathleen Passidomo, the Naples Republican who chairs the committee, on two occasions to caution that she would have audience members removed.
The bill would criminalize—to a second-degree misdemeanor–the use of public or company bathrooms by people of the “wrong” sex and enable companies or individuals to sue either such users or the companies or institutions that allow such use. Transgender people would have to show proof of their new sex through a valid driver’s license or a passport. Transgender people in transition—as the process can take years—would be allowed to show that they’re in transition, up to a point, if they have a passport, but not with a Florida driver’s license.
The bill was filed by Rep. Frank Artiles, the Miami Republican, in direct response to an ordinance the Miami-Dade County Commission passed last December, extending protections against discrimination to transgender people in housing, employment and public accommodation. Artiles focused on the theoretical possibility that any heterosexual man could one day decide to be a woman, if he felt like it, and enter a women’s bathroom as a result. The bill, he said, “is a common sense bill regarding public safety and privacy and uniformity.”
The Miami-Dade ordinance drew heavily on “Injustice at Every Turn,” a groundbreaking study published in 2011 by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and based on a broad survey of LGBT individuals—53 percent of whom reported being harassed or disrespected in public facilities (with 26 percent reporting being denied access to bathrooms), and 41 percent of whom lived without IDs that matched their transgender identity. The report also noted that 41 percent of respondents reported attempting suicide, compared to a 1.6 percent rate for the general population.
“The intentions are good,” Artiles said of the ordinance, “however the execution is poor, and it opens the door to people to use these facilities under the protection of the Miami-Dade County ordinance.”
Artiles conceded that laws already on the books address sexual crimes. But he called Miami-Dade’s protections “overbroad.”
Nevertheless, under questioning even by the committee’s Republican members, Artiles was repeatedly unable to show evidence that the problem he was imagining exists, or that it would avert lawsuits under federal civil rights rules. “This is a work in progress,” Artiles said, calling himself willing to keep amending the bill.
“How does this reconcile with the federal law that essentially says you have to make accommodations for individuals who prefer to express themselves in ways that they themselves actually control?” John Wood, the Winter Haven Republican, asked.
Artiles couldn’t answer beyond saying that in his “opinion,” there is no conflict. “I’m going to leave the lawyers to discuss that.” But that’s what some legislators and opponents of the bill are worried about: the measure would open the way to lawsuits under the federal law.
St. Petersburg’s Dwight Dudley, one of the four Democrats who voted against the bill, took a quizzical approach, asking what would happen to a legislator in Tallahassee who could not find an open bathroom of his or her own sex, and uses one of the opposite sex. “So, we’re going to arrest a legislator as a result of doing that?”
Again, Artiles could not answer. “The whole purpose is not to have somebody patrolling the bathroom facilities, it’s basically to clarify what everybody has used right now which is males go to male bathrooms, females go to females bathrooms.” He spoke of the bill’s exemptions that allow fathers or legal guardians to bring children or the elderly into opposite-sex bathrooms when necessary. But he did not address the legal consequences in the situation Dudley presented.
Wood persisted. “There are laws on the books today to prosecute crimes regardless of what sex somebody is, however they want to identify [themselves], and those are things that will continue to be prosecuted if somebody acts inappropriately, no matter what kind of bathroom they’re in, right?”
“There are laws, criminal laws, based on lewd and lascivious, rape, voyeurism, so on and so forth, you are correct,” Artiles said. “However, when a county such as Miami-Dade County expands a language to overbroad language that allows heterosexual males to go into bathrooms where females under the cover of law, there is an issue, and that is why this legislation has been brought forth.”
But there has been no such issue. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Sally Hayman, a former House member, a lawyer and criminal justice consultant who was one of the right commissioners approving the ordinance in December, ridiculed Artiles’s claims.
“The Miami-Dade ordinance still makes it against the law for men to go into women’s bathrooms and for women to go into women’s bathrooms,” she said. “As sponsor of the legislation, I investigated not only statewide but nationally, and found no evidence of privacy and or issues of escalation to violation, crimes, intrusions associated with transgender persons. As a crime and loss prevention practitioner, no law enforcement data, FCIC and NCIC, showed increased vulnerability nor crimes against persons, especially in the areas of sex assault, predatory crimes against minors, and with over three decades of investigation activity under my belt, I never remember a sex assault or a predatory crime both against minors or the elderly considered under Florida statute to be a vulnerable population, in a venue such as a single-sex public facility as defined in this legislation, to involve a person of transgender identity. Ever. In over three decades. No documented criminal incidents since this passed in Miami-Dade County related to our ordinance includes a perpetrator, a suspect, an offender, or a convicted person of transgender identity.”
Hayman concluded: “This legislation is a solution in search of a problem that does not exist.”
Artiles at first appeared not necessarily concerned with actual transgender people so much as people impersonating transgender people. But that concern exposed his willingness to sacrifice the rights of transgender people in the name of the largely undocumented possibility of mischief by others. And he soon spoke in language that explicitly opposed special protection for transgender people.
“Aren’t we going to provoke a whole spate of lawsuits,” Wood said, referring to the federal Civil Rights Act, “and how does your bill deal with that?”
Artiles’s answer, dispensing with his own arguments about broadening protections for all, starkly revealed his motive: “I believe under the Supreme Court of the United States, they’re not a protected class.” The statement suggests that the proposed bill may be part of a larger shift in GOP-dominated state legislatures that have responded to the swift legalization of gay marriage with a series of bills targeting LGBT rights.
Nor, it was clear from Artiles’s and the committee’s approach, were legislators interested in protecting members of the LGBT community, though Artiles was partially incorrect—as Wood subsequently pointed out: “Gender is a protected class” under federal law, Wood said, exposing the clash at the heart of Artiles’ proposal: it would define gender far more strictly and subjectively than does federal law, or LGBT interpretation.
“What you’re trying to tell me is that the norm is what Miami-Dade has, and I disagree with you,” Artiles said. “Miami-Dade is the exception, which, the norm would be something that’s based on what’s happening throughout, and removing the exemption that we have in Miami-Dade.”
“The answer is yes,” Artiles said.
“Do I as an individual have the right under the law to ask the intruder for their gender identification to determine if they should be using the facility?” Berman asked.
Artiles deflected the question, though his bill does open the way for just the sort of scenario Burton was illustrating. The bill calls for “reasonable, remedial measures” that facility owners must take to address such situations. “As a matter of fact, there’s some establishments that actually promote this type of blurring of the lines between bathrooms, and that’s what we’re trying to prevent,” Artieles said. (Note: in an earlier version of this story, the Berman questions were incorrectly attributed to Rep. Colleen Burton.)
Pressed on his understanding of “remedial measures,” Artiles answered: “Reasonable, remedial measures would be, asking the person to leave the facility, please use the proper facility, maybe call the police, make a report. Remedial measures.”
“The subjectivity and the subjectiveness of the Miami-Dade ordinance which says clearly how you feel, or your deep feelings, is where you could go to the bathroom, well, I have a problem with that,” Artiles said, “because I believe with such a large municipality such as Miami-Dade County with 2.5 million people, and being an urban center that it is, I believe that criminals and males will use this law, the cover of law, to walk into a women’s locker room, and not to conduct criminal and or lewd and lascivious and crimes that are actually covered in Florida statute, but just to push the envelope and go there and just basically to hang out. And I think I have a problem, I know I have a problem with that.”
But when Richardson asked Artiles for a single example of such an instance as Artiles was describing, Artiles could not cite one. He deferred to other speakers, then deflected the question again by terming the Miami-Dade ordinance as “the exception to the rule.”
When Passidomo, the committee chairwoman, turned over the discussion to comments from the floor, some three dozen people had lined up to speak. Among them was Robert Cindy Sullivan, whose testimony turned into the emotional highlight of the afternoon.
Cindy Robert Sullivan’s Full Testimony[media id=396 width=250 height=200]
iPhone and Android users, click here.
“I represent Rep. Artiles’s greatest fear. I am Robert Sullivan. I am a transgendered individual,” Sullivan said, describing herself as the parent of a University of Florida student, an IT professional and a Republican.
“I’ve worked with defense contractors, with Lockheed-Northrop-Grumman to help defend this country and its freedoms,” Sullivan said. “But you all still don’t get it. I’m so scared of all of you, that you could put me in jail for being me. This bill is government intrusion at its worst. At the company I currently work for, I’m Cindy Sullivan, they respect me, they let me use the restroom, the women’s restroom, and only the women’s restroom. This bill would require them to ID me at the door and to have me go to a different location, breaking my workplace harmony, my job security.” (Read Sullivan’s full testimony here or hear it in the audio clip above.)
Often turning to face Artiles, who was sitting just behind her, to her right, Sullivan was contemptuous of his focus on heterosexual men. “Transmen, who are women who want to become men, are they not—you guys make a flippant attitude about a woman in the restroom, is that OK? Imagine me being in the woman’s restroom, sir. Imagine that harassment I would suffer. You don’t think I have ever been stalked? Objectified? Sexualized? Where’s my safe place to run to for me? Oh, that’s right. I am not a protected class. I am a throw-away piece of trash in this country of freedom and liberty and respect.”
Gina Duncan, the transgender inclusion director for Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBT-advocacy organization, and a transgender woman herself—she transitioned eight years ago when working for Wells Fargo, a company that, she said, supported her and “walked the walk”—said the transgender community already experiences a lot of discrimination, which this bill would further enable. “This is my driver’s license,” she then said, holding up the license. “Unless this gender marker was changed, I would be forced to use the men’s room, today, under this bill. Is this where we want to go as a state? Is this where we really want to go as a society? And is this the legacy that we want to leave our children—of intolerance and open, blatant discrimination?”
Artiles had his supporters, and not just on the committee. Nathaniel Wilcox, executive director of People United to Lead the Struggle for Equality, a conservative civil rights organization in Miami-Dade that has fought gay marriage, described the Miami-Dade ordinance as “really crazy.”
Anthony Verdugo, executive director of the Christian Family Coalition of Florida, who told committee members outright that they’d been “lied to,” claiming the county attorney in Miami Dade has said men may use women’s bathrooms. “That’s a matter of public record,” he said. “It is disappointing that some folks would use the smokescreen of discrimination when this is an issue of public safety.”
The Artiles bill, HB583, has a companion bill in the Senate, SB1464, sponsored by Sen. Charles Dean, the Ocala Republican. The bill in the House next heads for the Government Operations Subcommittee and the full Judiciary Committee.
Wednesday’s discussion and vote can be heard in full below.
The Civil Justice Subcommittee’s Full Discussion on SB583[media id=397 width=500 height=400]
Obama 2015 says
ACLU line one. Yet another lawsuit my tax dollars will have to pay for.. Thanks GOP!
NortonSmitty says
Hey, I have no problem paying for this. It is important protection for the average citizen. One time in Miami I was standing at the urinal and a tall blonde with big tits stood next to me and made me piss all over my new shoes when she put out a bigger stream. The PPP (Pisshouse Penis Partol) would use money that would just be wasted by the EPA or SEC supressing the creativity of the Job Creators, so it’s a Good Thing.
Nalla C. says
Ridiculous. I said it elsewhere and I am going to say it here: it’s as if Florida Republicans think that the transgendered are going to “the wrong bathroom”, so they can lay in wait for someone to “corrupt”.
I run out of adjectives, but this is just the most hateful disgusting POS “proposal” to ever emanate from any modern government. The transgendered–like everyone else–have to eliminate feces and urine from their human bodies at regular intervals too. But no, if you’re GOP, you’ve got to prove you have the human right to eliminate body waste in the correct “room”, designated by sign.
What an absolutely gross abuse of the legislative process. Get these petty tyrants outta here!
OMG says
I don’t want some sexually confused person in the wrong bathroom.
I am all for it and I thank God everyday for the GOP and the conservative movement… this country is losing all it’s morality the the whacky LEFT>
What's Happening says
You don’t have to GET some “sexually confused person in the wrong bathroom” They are in there to urinate or defecate just like you are.
Here’s what most decent human beings do when they have to go to the bathroom. They: 1) go into a stall; 2) they eliminate their human waste; 3) they wash their hands. What else are you in a bathroom for?
You wouldn’t even know it was happening if hadn’t been made into a “news story”. I am seriously tired of the trolling behavior encouraged by our so-called “leaders”. This is abuse of the democratic process and it’s ignorant. The guy who introduced this “bill” should be removed from office. He was NOT sent to Tallahassee to police public restrooms.
My God, some of you are simply losing your humanity.
NortonSmitty says
Boy, do I miss Anita Bryant.
“Sometimes, I think I need a Woman,
and sometimes I think I need a man.
But Lord knows I don’t need Anita
to keep me from being what I am.”
Original tune by a great ’70s Pittsburgh band I don’t remember the name of. But boy, It was a timely song
NortonSmitty says
The bands name was Gravel. And with superior song writing like the above, the leaders moved to Nashville and became the Corbin/Hammer Band.
https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/Folk-and-County/corbin-and-hanner
Robert Cuff says
Ms. Hayman’s statement that this proposal is a solution in search of a problem is spot on.The notion that this state needs more criminal laws addressing a non-existent problem and more rights to sue businesses who don’t check their employees’s or customers’s identification closely enough before allowing them to use a restroom (and awarding the plaintiff attorney fees for bringing such a ridiculous lawsuit) is absurd.
What's Happening says
And thank you for reminding me–I thought the Republican Party was against intrusive government?
Egalité says
This is sickening and an outrage. What people don’t seem to understand is that transgender women–that is, those who were born with a male body but identify as female–are not men, they are women, just as much as women who are born into female bodies. If you call such an individual a man, you are incorrect and you are misgendering her. The same goes for transgender men (biological females who identify as male)–they are just as male as men who were born into male bodies. Physical characteristics and gender identity are two different things. This bill is literally preventing women from using the women’s restroom, and men from using the men’s restroom, which is completely illogical, discriminatory, and wrong.
confidential says
Doesn’t Repulsican Artiles have anything better to do and lobby for, like promoting large and small businesses support and success so they can create needed jobs?
What waste of our tax dollars in such frivolous and bigoted attacks to his fellow Americans.
Lin says
This is not a simple issue and the transgender are often in different degrees of transition
To keep politics out of it and make everyone comfortable why not have restrooms with doors that lock and can be used by both sexes one person at a time.
I’ve seen a lot of those
Nancy N. says
Restrooms of these sorts are more expensive for businesses to build – it takes more space and fixtures (because patrons can’t share facilities such as sinks) to serve the same number of people).
Flatsflyer says
Sex will be determined by Drivers License or Passport, if you don’t have either then you can use any facility you want. Nobody under 16 has a DL and only 35% of the population has a Passport. Let’s pass a Law saying Tea Baggers are not allowed to use any facility period. Maybe these would eventually explode and drown in their own excrements.
What's Happening says
There are lots of unisex one-person bathrooms with doors that lock in the state of Florida. What is different about this, that it needs legislative action by the Republican Party of Tallahassee, they of “make government smaller and less intrusive!” fame?
All this attention to this unbelievable inanity, I should remind you, means you’re not paying to the real felon in the Governor’s Mansion and his real shenanigans which hurt and steal from real people. But I digress…
I’ve seen far ickier things on a Saturday night in a bar where heterosexual people drink and vomit where I might need to relieve myself. So where’s MY law??
Can we please take our heads out of our nether regions? This doesn’t have to be an issue at all. WHY does ANYONE think it is anyone else’s business where in a “transition” a transgendered person might be, when all we’re talking about is relieving ourselves of human waste?
You’re just there to go to the bathroom. You’re not there for any other reason. What is wrong with simply minding your own business and stop worrying about what other people might be doing?
This is just unbelievable. Actual Florida “lawmakers” are putting the people of this state through this wretched, ignorant abuse of the public process. And people sit back and try to justify it. Unbelievable…
Nancy N. says
“I’ve seen far ickier things on a Saturday night in a bar where heterosexual people drink and vomit where I might need to relieve myself. So where’s MY law?? ”
Bingo. On Wednesday afternoon when I was driving to Orlando, I stopped at the Sanford rest area. A young couple was exiting the “Family” restroom, smiling at each other and laughing. The woman was still pulling her top down as they walked out. But I don’t see anyone in Tallahassee making noise about idiocy like that – because it’s heterosexual!
There’s also a serious touch of misogyny in all of this fuss because I keep hearing that this needs to be done because “what if a man wants to go in the women’s room”. As if a) the “little ladies” aren’t fully capable of chasing out anyone who is up to no good in their restroom and b) no one is apparently concerned about women wanting to go check out the action in the men’s room? Puh-lease. Stop hiding behind your sexist “protect the delicate little ladies” rhetoric and stand by your bill for what it is, GOP – discrimination for the sake of discrimination.
Freddy says
Ok! so what bathroom does Bruce Jeener use?
NortonSmitty says
Depends.
Jon Hardison says
“If a man wakes up one morning and he decides I want to be a woman, he’s a woman that day. If he wants to switch around back and forth, that’s not what we need here in the state of Florida,” Wilcox said, supporting the bill.”
Someone here said this wasn’t a simple issue. I beg to differ…
If I walk into a men’s bathroom and do something inappropriate, there are laws that will punish me for those actions. If a woman walks into a women’s bathroom and does something inappropriate, there are laws that will punish her for those actions.
Bursting into a stall on someone in a men’s bathroom comes with a sort of automatic punishment as I imagine it does with with a woman’s… It’s probably a good idea to just stop for a second and thing about it.
We’re not protecting anyone from anything with legislation like this. We’re not stoping something awful from happening. WE ALREADY HAVE ALL THE LAWS WE NEED IN THIS REGARD. Hell, laws are reactive, not preventive. So what’s really going on?
It’s simple. We’re trying to make it harder for people we don’t like to be who they are.
It’s no different than putting all the stinky blacks at the back of the bus or Irish in the bowels of the ship.
These laws, and all the laws like them are hate crimes. Nothing less. Don’t let your discomfort with people you don’t understand cloud your vision.
To the supports of this brand of legislation, your fears are no more real than those of white people in the 50’s that needed laws to make sure their water fountains weren’t contaminated or separate bathrooms so they could be sure their toilet seats had remained jigaboo free. Were they ever going to catch Black, or stinky, or stupid? Nope. And you won’t catch any of this either, so stop it.
JUST STOP IT!
Jon Hardison says
One more thing:
You all do realize that there’s literally nothing you can do to keep Transgender People out of your bathrooms, right? I mean, there’s going to be a man…in a dress…standing next to you at the urinals…laughing at your penis size. It’s like being belittled by both sexes at the same time.
Honestly, we should really be able to agree how ridiculously stupid this is.
Okay, I’m done.
Anonymous says
This is ridiculous. Waste of taxpayers money. The legislature needs to find something better to do. Maybe they can concentrate on finding ways to reduce our prison populations or improve schools. But no, they are worried about where people are peeing. Idiots.
Nancy N. says
Look at it this way…while they are worrying about how people are peeing they have less time to worry about how we have sex and reproduce.
Anonymous says
funny
blondee says
Oh dear I see the days of unisex bathrooms approaching!
Sherry Epley says
This whole idea of policing the gender of those using public toilets is nothing short of ludicrous! Just think this through to how this ridiculous law would be enforced. Are the tax payers really willing to pay for the extra police officers and judges needed to sort out who “legally” goes into which doors???
LOL! The picture in my mind of needing to show ID or one’s privates to a restroom attendant just shows how incredibly absurd this whole concept is. . . LOL!. . . Especially coming the political party who (out of “one” side of their mouth) says they want LESS government. The LESS government they really want is only those regulations proposed by the Democrats.
“BOTH ROOMS” are often used in other regions of the USA and other countries with NO problems what so ever. The “olden days” of ladies rooms with swooning couches are long over. . . urinals need to eventually go the same way. Buck up citizens and get thee to a booth, and keep it CLEAN. By the way, ladies. . . the men’s room is often cleaner than the ladies.
Nalla C. says
The most absurd thing about any of this is the endless proof that there are far too many people in society who spend way too much time thinking about what other people are doing with their human bodies.
Seriously, think about this. The far-right-leaning politically, in particular, are clearly obsessed with Teh Gay and Lesbian and Bi-sexual and Trans-gendered. They’re obsessed with where a person urinates or defecates. They’ve long been obsessed with ladyparts and what women might be doing with them or not in regard to babies.
I am–seriously–so disgusted at this, but as someone noted upthread, we should not lose sight of the fact that this is surely some kind of red-meat toss to the more knuckle-dragging amongst their base, to keep them fired up. That and keeping everyone occupied while Governor Voldemort continues looting the treasury and destroying the state when he thinks nobody is watching.
How about you con artists do better next time, than something this pathetic? GROW UP.
Outsider says
You are all missing the point. All a man has to do is claim he is a newly transgendered individual and walk into the women’s restroom. What if there’s a bunch of girls in there at the time? I wouldn’t want my young daughters in there, and that is the issue being addressed. Why do we have to disrupt the lives of 99.99% of the population for .01%?
Sherry Epley says
OMG! For all those who have never been in a ladies room. . . there are mirrors, sinks and booths with toilets in them. There are NO urinals! No one EVER walks around outside the locked booths with any part of their clothing removed. None of us really knows what is under the clothes that everyone wears.
So just how terrible would it be if a man came in and used the ladies room. . . Really? Think about it!
Jon Hardison says
Outsider: No. You’re missing the point. Being a man does not entitle me to free peeking so long as it’s in the boys room. I don’t get to touch anyone, chase anyone, asking anyone for sex… All these things are already illegal. Like I said above, you only feel better about a law like this because you’re not think. Your young daughters are already legally protected against bad bathroom people. This isn’t about your daughter’s safety.
All the laws that are needed are already in place and have been for some time.
This is about making it harder for people you don’t like to be who they are.
Has anyone ever done anything inappropriate to your girls in a bathroom?
Has any Transgender individual caused harm to your children? You’re asking to preemptively solve a problem that doesn’t exist by criminalizing Transgender Americans use of a bathroom. It’s a hate bill.
Again, STOP IT!
What's Happening says
“All a man has to do is dress like a woman and lay in wait in a bathroom.”
You act as if that couldn’t happen now. Are you telling me there are no laws that cover such a thing already?
Whatever happened to “smaller, less intrusive government”?
Why must everyone else suffer because .01 percent of the population is afraid of something they don’t understand and can’t be bothered to do so because they think it’s icky?
You’re missing the point, I promise. The transgendered, like everyone else, goes into a public restroom to relieve themselves. I’d bet good money on the idea that you see transgendered people every single day, and you don’t even know it. There’s no reason to make a whole new onerous law for this non-problem. Enforce the laws on the books now.
Lin says
I’ve never seen any law enforcement hanging out policing the bathrooms so I don’t see how laws are going to help here. Crimes have occurred In public bathrooms. Not talking about any particular group.
Yes, I have seen women I don’t know in ladies rooms adjust their clothing and exposing some parts occasionally.
Privacy (one at a time bathrooms) In those functions is the way make everyone comfortable, and I don’t have to explain things to my grandchildren that they are too young to understand.
No need to be so in your face here. Why is being considerate a bad thing? Why is privacy a bad word? All over Europe there are single person unisex bathrooms.
Nancy N. says
“I’ve never seen any law enforcement hanging out policing the bathrooms so I don’t see how laws are going to help here.”
No, cops don’t hang out for the most part and police who uses bathrooms. But if the legislature criminalizes the use of restrooms by people of the “wrong” sex, then conservative bigots will become the police in the bathrooms, calling the cops or building security on anyone in the restroom that they suspect “doesn’t belong”. It will give free reign to a culture of suspicion, hate, and discrimination and make trans people afraid of going to the bathroom for fear of having to explain themselves to a police officer or even being arrested.
Which is, after all, the entire point of this…when the civil rights movement began to have more and more success, there was a nasty backlash, the last gasp of the bigots desperate to hold onto their evil ways. What we are seeing with legislation like this is the same thing – a hateful backlash against LGBT people from those who know they are about to lose the war against gay marriage and who are looking for any desperate way to cling to their hateful discrimination against others.
NortonSmitty says
“I’ve never seen any law enforcement hanging out policing the bathrooms so I don’t see how laws are going to help here.”
Tell that to full-fledged Republican senator Larry “Wide Stance” Craig. Who was rated at 99.7% for his voting record in support of Family Values and against HomoFuckinSexuality by the Family Research Council.
Which makes perfect sense even after he was caught trolling for Dick (I don’t know, I guess it should be a Capitol D in this case regardless of size) in an airport bathroom only when you consider the founder and head of the Family Research Council Ted Haggard was caught a few months later paying off a RentBoy HomoHooker with Chrystal Meth and the funds stolen from the collection plate.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Religion. And double it if they tell you Jesus was a Conservative.