ENDA scare tactics

Here's yet another ignoramus discovered in the sewer of World Net Daily: the neck-less Mychal Massie, perhaps the recipient of Jerry Falwell's donated jowls upon his death.

Today, he's terrified of the potential ramifications of passing the Employee Non-Discrimination Act:

In layman's terms, said lawyer-speak means, if ENDA becomes law (and I am in no way attempting to inject humor here), (Mike's note: Good, because if you were, you failed miserably) the branch manager of your local bank could, without fear of penalty, come to work looking like "Boy George in Liza Minnelli 1980s drag makeup, complete in his working girl commuter-friendly disco sneakers." And there wouldn't be a thing the bank could do or say about it – no matter how offended its customers might be or how uncomfortable it would make the other employees.

Passage of ENDA means that the surgeon scheduled to perform your operation could decide to do same in his blond wig with full mascara and his Playtex plus-size bra, and there wouldn't be a thing the hospital could say or do.

It means that your child's second-grade teacher could decide she was going to dress like a man, complete with makeup to simulate facial hair, and the school would have no recourse. And it goes without saying that the owner of a local Bible bookstore would be powerless to prevent a homosexual employee from holding hands with his or her homosexual lover within the workplace. Any attempt to prevent said behavior would result in immediate litigation.

Now that he's sufficiently frightened Bertha Sue from Peoria into think that Varla Jean Merman is going to dropkick Mr. McFeely out of the way and start showing up every day with her special deliveries, allow me to inject a little rationality here. ENDA means NONE of those things.

You see, Mr. Massey, corporate America, school districts and hospitals have these crazy things called dress codes. Just like the bank branch manager isn't showing up to work now in orange crocs, tattered sweatpants and a "No Fat Chicks" T-shirt and the surgeon isn't performing vasectomies in a top hat and tails. People are expected to dress a certain way for certain jobs, and ENDA wouldn't change that.

Massey is purposely melding campy drag acts with transgendered people when, in reality, or at least in my experience, those are two circles of a Venn diagram that have very little overlap. Most transgendered people I have known have dressed rather conservatively, in fact.

Nor would ENDA give Steve and Andrew the right to start groping in front of a shelf full of Joel Osteen's latest self-help advice book to the horror of Christian bookstore patrons. Workplaces are allowed to have rules against public displays of affection, and ENDA wouldn't change that.

I can't decide whether Massie is just a moron, or he assumes anyone who reads his column is a moron. Or both. Whatever. I'm done now, anyway. I'm at work, and it's really hard to type with these Lee's Press-On Nails on my fingers.