Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Dobson's Misinformation Campaign

Telling those fibs with donation money. Hey, at least it is tax deductible for the givers.

Colorado SB 200 was signed into law by CO Gov. Bill Ritter. The new law is an anti-discrimination bill which, among other things, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public accommodations. It also defines "sexual orientation" to include transgender status. Seizing on this, Dobson's Focus on the Family is now running a controversial advertising campaign against the bill in Colorado newspapers. According to today's Pueblo Chieftain , the ads claim the new law has made all public restrooms unisex. The ad depicts an innocent little girl coming out of a bathroom stall with a man in boots waiting to use it.

Of course, the law (click here for the pdf document) has not been interpreted by anyone but Focus on the Family as forcing all restrooms to be unisex. And there have been 20 states pass similar laws. Nope. Not one incident of the law being used to claim the legality of using the opposite sex's restroom, according to Jennifer Veiga, a Denver attorney who sponsored the legislation.

And the Pueblo City Attorney Tom Jagger thought the argument by Focus on the Family was equally disingenuous, saying: "Until I get some clarification on that, I would seriously disagree with the (Focus) interpretation. I read the (Colorado Municipal League) advisories on legislation and there was no mention of that in terms of public accommodations."

But all that doesn't mean Focus on the Family won't use every opportunity to misrepresent things, now does it? You should know better than that. According to Focus on the Family, there has already been one incident at Colorado Springs Municipal Airport where a man walked into a women's restroom. A young Focus female employee was startled to find him there --- & just so happens she didn't report it becauseit is claimed she believed Focus on the Family's smoke screen about the new law.

Come on. We all know people walk into the wrong restrooms all the time by mistake. And surely Focus on the Family doesn't think we're that naive --- had that really happened at the airport, it would have been a =perfect= test case. I bet FOF is begging for such an incident for a test case. So please excuse me if I see that little tidbit of info has stercus tauri.

1 comment:

Georgia Mountain Man said...

Check out this episode of The Daily Show from last week and the exerpt with Dobson. Good stuff:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=174782