Republican Governors in New Hampshire like to veto bills that have anything to do with men in women’s safe spaces unless it’s to pass a law allowing it. That was Chris Sununu. HB1319. A bill we were more or less told he’d never sign. Three years later, Sununu would be crowned the Sun-King for his COVID tyranny, and while his replacement hasn’t been tested like that (so far) on this issue, she is more afraid of the gender-benders than the Republicans.
Registered Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte is, like Sununu, better than any Democrat, but when it comes to dudes in the girls’ room, she likes the idea. It’s probably not a personal preference. I don’t know her at all except for the politics we see, and there is plenty there to not like. Again, better than a Democrat, which is not all that different from saying, ” Well, we didn’t die.”
What a relief. Maybe even a blessing. But it’s not aspirational, nor has Ayotte been, when it comes to bathroom bills. She’s had multiple opportunities to keep perverts away from your little girl and has vetoed every one of them. Why? Because it’s more important to make sure a dude with a penis in a dress isn’t criticized in the men’s room than a dude with his penis up your wife’s dress in the ladies’ room.
Statistically, that appears to be a risk they are willing to let your wives, sisters, and daughters take.
So much for even “just one.”
Anyway, I bring all that up because the legislature just passed SB552. This bill differs by adding more words to our already unnecessarily wordy State civil rights chapter. Regular readers may be familiar with my repeated questions about the motivations of our AG regarding hate crimes (no such thing) and free speech (a very real thing). [Related: MACDONALD: A Few Thoughts on the Concord PD (Pronoun Department) And the AG’s Civil Rights “Itch”]
AG Formella likes to charge people for violating people’s civil rights. One judge tossed the AG’s office under the bus for its attempt at chilling free speech in public. The same case I, nobody of legal skill or merit, told him he was going to lose badly, which he did. It was then that I pointed out that all the extra things in the civil rights law could be removed, and it would mean the exact same thing because all people (regardless of anything else) are equal under the law.
As written:
354-B:1 Civil Rights Enforcement. –
I. All persons have the right to engage in lawful activities and to exercise and enjoy the rights secured by the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions and the laws of the United States and New Hampshire without being subject to actual or threatened physical force or violence against them or any other person or by actual or threatened damage to or trespass on property when such actual or threatened conduct is motivated by race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or disability. “Threatened physical force” and “threatened damage to or trespass on property” is a communication, by physical conduct or by declaration, of an intent to inflict harm on a person or a person’s property by some unlawful act with a purpose to terrorize or coerce.
II. It shall be unlawful for any person to interfere or attempt to interfere with the rights secured by
Same thing, a lot fewer words and a lot less dicking around.
“All persons have the right to engage in lawful activities and to exercise and enjoy the rights secured by the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions and the laws of the United States and New Hampshire without being subject to actual or threatened physical force or violence against them or by actual or threatened damage to or trespass on their property.“
Anyway (again), SB552 amends RSA 354 A (not B), but we’re in the same realm of possibilities. One where you have to add all of this so that free people don’t have to be afraid to observe a biological fact known by everyone for millions of years until just now (ish).
II. The general court also finds that, notwithstanding New Hampshire’s fundamental commitment to treat all persons without discrimination and with equal dignity and respect, which commitment the legislature fully accepts and strongly endorses, there are certain limited circumstances in which classification of persons based on biological sex is proper because such classification serves the compelling state interests of protecting the privacy rights and physical safety of such persons and others. The legislature finds that permitting classification of persons based upon biological sex serves this compelling state interest in the 3 circumstances described in RSA 354-A:25-a.
2 New Section; State Commission for Human Rights; Miscellaneous Provisions; State Recognition of Biological Sex. Amend RSA 354-A by inserting after section 25 the following new section:
354-A:25-a State Recognition of Biological Sex.
I. Nothing in RSA 5-C:87, RSA 260 through RSA 263-A, RSA 354-A, or any other law or regulation shall mean that it is unlawful discrimination based on sex or gender identity for any person or organization, public or private, to classify based on biological sex with respect to the following matters:
(a) In the construction, maintenance, operation, and use of lavatory facilities or locker rooms designed for usage by multiple persons at the same time, even if such facilities have individual urinals, stalls, or similar apparatus.
(b) In athletic or sporting events or competitions in a sport or similar activity in which physical strength, speed, or endurance is generally recognized to give an advantage to biological males.
(c) In the operation, maintenance, and use of facilities designed for usage as prisons, houses of correction, juvenile detention or commitment centers, mental health hospitals or treatment centers and like facilities to which persons may be committed involuntarily.
II. “Biological sex” shall mean the male and female biological sexes. This section does not mean that any public or private entity is required by state statute to separate persons based upon biological sex.
3 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.
It’s not a state mandate; it’s actually a matter of choice, which Democrats hate, no matter what the trifold glossy brochure says. Places with these facilities can choose to separate by private parts, and you can’t sue them for that. It’s legal, lawful, and a matter of conscience. If you don’t like it, there’s a Planet Fitness up the road somewhere, and you can dangle your junk all over the ladies’ spaces, and if you complain, they terminate your membership.
That’s their choice, and nothing about SB552 changes that.
Is this a bridge too far? Is Ayotte too afraid of Democrats and their gaystapo to sign it into law? Would her AG even defend it against a circus-like clown car of NH Judges who can’t be relied on for much of anything and are equally afraid of Democrat crazies and their gender-bent shoot-em-up mental health familiars?
My money is on veto, and I’m not being pessimistic, I’m just skeptical that Ayotte has the rhetorical balls to keep people with actual balls out of girls’ and women’s spaces. I know, we have that pic of her holding the save women’s sports flag, but unless you’re a drunk Welsh or Irishman (woman or manwoman), there isn’t much sport happening in the lavatory, and if you are a manwoman, it’s not the sort of sport real women are interested in, and that’s the point of SB552.
People who manage, oversee, or own public or private restrooms or locker rooms should be free to assess the liability and decide for themselves, and the state should stay out of that. That has been the way for almost all of modern history and all of prehistory. Anything else is unnatural, make-believe, and a progressive social construct.
Sign the bill, Governor. Your Republican party street cred could use a lift, and you can’t appease Democrats, so stop trying.
