Dear Editor:
Letter to the Editor in response to: Lewisburg is trying to pass a nondiscrimination ordinance, and all anyone can talk about is bathrooms by Sarah Mansheim.
Thank you for openly discussing the true nature of the ordinance and the facts surrounding the “bathroom” myths being generated to promote fear. As you noted opponents are stuck on the statement “public accommodations” and using scare tactics of deviant men pretending to be transgender to exploit, namely young girls. Yet, as you noted, there is no documented case of that ever happening in any municipality that has adopted a LGBT non-discrimination ordinance in the United States over the past 35 years.
However, I would like to add that it has been well documented that predators have posed as janitors in elementary schools, as troop leaders, as a trusted family member, even as church youth leaders and pastors to gain access to children (read http://boz.religionnews.com/2014/01/09/startling-statistics/). But as stated previously, no documented case of violations to children has ever happened in any municipality that has adopted a LGBT non-discrimination ordinance in the past 35 years. Therefore, to isolate one group of people as promoters of opportunities for deviant men to exploit girls is discrimination.
As evidence supports a predator can be any sex or race, and their religious affiliations are as diverse as anyone else’s. In fact, in one well known study 93 percent of the 4,007 adults ages 18 to 95, who admitted that they had sexually molested one or several children reported themselves as being religious (The Stop Child Molestation Book, by Gene G. Abel, M.D. and Nora Harlow). Opponents are using a scare tactic that is not factually based to discriminate against an unprotected group of people who are victims of harmful verbal and physical violence when simply trying to carry out their daily activities.
Sherry L. Roper, PH.D.
Lewisburg