A Republican congressional candidate
has lamented passage of an ordinance in Cuyahoga County protecting
LGBT persons from discrimination.
Last week, Cuyahoga County Council
approved an ordinance that prohibits discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity in the areas of housing, employment
and public accommodations. The measure establishes a three-person
commission to investigate discrimination complaints. Fines collected
will be used to fund an awareness campaign.
(Related: Cuyahoga
County, which includes Cleveland, okays LGBT protections.)
Cuyahoga County is Ohio's second most
populous county, as of 2016, and its county seat is Cleveland.
Beverly Goldstein, the Republican
candidate vying for Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge's seat,
described passage of the ordinance as “awful,” and linked its
passage to Cleveland's illiteracy rate.
“AWFUL CUYAHOGA OUTCOME [Human Rights
Commission] 2 be created,” Goldstein tweeted. “Must launch
effective legal challenge. Shout out: hubby Michael testified.
Outcome directly tied 2 CLE 66% adult illiteracy. If CCC had
LITERATE inner-city church-attending Black voters following this
issue=entirely opposite outcome.”
Fudge called Goldstein's remarks
“ill-informed, racist and homophobic,” according to
Cleveland.com.
Goldstein's husband, attorney Michael
Goldstein, expanded on his wife's remarks, saying that “the problem
is illiteracy, not race. Race is not the issue.”
He went on to say that the law would
allow male sex offenders to masquerade as women and enter women's
bathrooms, a common trope used by opponents of allowing transgender
people to use the bathroom of their choice.
“If most of them understood that this
ordinance would allow transgender males, or sex offenders who
masquerade as transgender males, to use women's bathrooms regularly
used by mothers and daughters, thereby endangering the safety of
girls and women, they probably would have brought pressure to bear on
their elected county representatives not to bring the resolution in
the first place," Michael Goldstein said. "But those who
cannot read cannot be expected to know about the negative effects of
the resolution."
Beverly Goldstein also challenged Fudge
in 2016. In that contest, Fudge easily won re-election with 80.3
percent of the vote.