Houston's out mayor, Annise Parker,
last week said she would continue to work on passage of an
LGBT-inclusive anti-bias law repealed by voters.
While HERO prohibits discrimination in
housing, employment and public accommodations based on more than a
dozen characteristics including race, religion, sexual orientation
and gender identity, opponents who forced it onto this month's ballot
kept to a misleading message: The law would give sexual predators
pretending to be women access to women's restrooms.
Roughly 60 percent of Houston voters
voted against HERO. Its defeat makes Houston the largest city in the
United States without LGBT protections.
“I'm going to sit down with the
council members and see how they want to proceed,” Parker is quoted
as saying by the Houston
Chronicle. “We will also, of course, evaluate what the
national and international response from the business community is,
because that certainly will make a difference.”
Parker, who is barred from seeking a
fourth term, said that she does not want “to leave a lot of
contentious items for the next administration, and I'm going to try
not to leave this one as well. … I think we have a responsibility
to try to be thoughtful and figure out a way to bring those
protections back.”
(Related: Annise
Parker blames “fear mongering” for defeat of LGBT Protections.)