With the Texas Supreme Court's ruling that Houston's non-discrimination ordinance must be put up to a public vote, the Religious Right is so pleased that a law that protects LGBT Americans is in danger that they chose to invoke the "pervert" trope especially for the occasion.
From Right Wing Watch:
"[Liberty Counsel activist Matt] Barber declared on a recent episode of LC’s 'Faith and Freedom' program that not only was the Texas Supreme Court decision a 'victory for the rule of law,' but it was a victory for women and children who will no longer be in danger of being attacked by 'perverts' in 'miniskirts.'
'This is a victory for those of us who are standing firm for the rights of children and women not to have their privacy violated by men in miniskirts who are pretending to be women,' he said. 'Who knows what sort of perverts and potential predators we’re talking about here, placing women and young girls at risk, primarily.'"
The ordinance calls for protections in both the public and private sector for a broad swath of the community, including "sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religious, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity, [and] pregnancy."
Matt Barber certainly isn't the first to use this particular rhetoric. Earlier this year, GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee suggested that non-discrimination ordinances would make it easier for men to access women's restrooms to harm women and children. Then he went a step further.
“Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE,” Huckabee joked. "I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’"
Gross.
The fact that a law that bans discrimination against LGBT Americans sends minds like Barber's, Huckabee's, and many others like them towards perversion might say more about those minds than the actual law itself.