Say hello to Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas. The Obama administration sent out a letter to school districts saying that they need to allow transgender students to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity. One school superintendent said he was going to shred the letter before he even received it.
The Obama administration is saying that they will likely cut funding to schools that stand against Obama’s letter. Patrick has declared that he will gladly forego the billions of dollars of federal funding, just so transgender people won’t use the bathrooms that they want to.
Officials from eight states have said signed a brief asking a federal appeals court to revisit the ruling that sided with a transgender boy and allowed him to use the boy’s restroom.
Patrick showed what he really thinks when he said this about Obama:
“We will not be blackmailed by the president’s 30 pieces of silver.”
The federal government telling the states what to do is not blackmail.
Lt. Gov. @DanPatrick says Obama's bathroom law letter threatens to take money away from the "poorest of the poor." pic.twitter.com/CBA1lbnhmd
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 13, 2016
Even Fox News’ Megyn Kelly confronted Patrick on this issue (and totally burned him, BTW). Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R97yBf3ZJNM
If the federal funding gets cut, that is 5.2 million children that they State of Texas wouldn’t be able to educate. This is fine with the politicians who can afford to send their kids to private school. But this will hurt children that cannot.
This is not the first time Dan Patrick has spoken out on this bathroom issue. He said on Twitter that he refuses to spend money on any businesses that are inclusive to transgender people.
I will not spend a single dollar with a business that allows men to use women's bathrooms: https://t.co/plg7fRcTG9 #tcot
— Dan Patrick (@DanPatrick) April 27, 2016
Here is what Patrick had to say after the backlash he received on Twitter:
“This is not about equal rights. I’m totally in favor of equal rights. I’m not prejudiced against anyone, but I don’t want any man for any reason going into a woman’s bathroom or a woman’s locker room, and I don’t think that 90 percent plus of your audience disagrees.”
Patrick feels so strongly about this issue that he’s created an online petition to try to keep people from peeing, with the landing page that has a background of Texas’ legendary bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush wildflowers.
And of course, after you sign it, it takes you to a page begging for money.
It seems that Mr. Patrick has his priorities a little messed up. The Texas Observer’s Andrea Grimes pointed this out:
Dan Patrick's presser on the "main issue" — bathroom bans. #rpt16 (Reminder: kids currently dying in TX CPS.) pic.twitter.com/zqeDpievWW
— spooky andrea grimes is moving to TX (@andreagrimes) May 13, 2016
Grimes is referring to the recent scandal involving neglect and falsification of records by the Texas Department of Child Protective Services.
This is an awesome tweet from a PARODY account (in caps so that people will know it’s parody), but it perfectly sums up the side of history upon which Lt. Gov. Patrick is choosing to align himself.
Segregated bathrooms now, segregated bathrooms tomorrow, segregated bathrooms forever! #txlege #tcot #nextlevel pic.twitter.com/H7A4v3gExZ
— Lt Gov. Dan Patrick (@DanPatrickTX) May 13, 2016
Just let them pee, Mr. Patrick!
Featured image by Marcus Quigmire via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
