ALBANY, New York, October 27,2015 (LifeSiteNews) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says he will create statewide regulations “protecting” transgender people.
“The fair, legal interpretation and definition of a person's sex includes gender [self-] identity,” Cuomo said at a fundraiser in Manhattan.
At the Empire State Pride Agenda fundraiser on Thursday, Cuomo said his newly imposed law will be enacted by executive order within a week. The sweeping new transgender rule will force compliance in the workplace, in the housing industry, and in public services and facilities. It will impact public and private retail stores, hospitals, education and recreation facilities, rental establishments, and other businesses.
Cuomo will be the first governor to compel transgender “discrimination” laws by executive fiat. Other states have enacted such laws through voting in their legislatures. But gay activists in New York were frustrated because the state's transgender bill had been stalled for years.
New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms (NYCF) accused Cuomo of “overstepping his bounds” as governor. “Gov. Cuomo intends to effectively amend the Human Rights Law without consulting the State Legislature,” NYCF explained in a press release. The conservative organization vowed to fight the executive decree, to the point of suing the state if necessary.
“The words of the Constitution of the State of New York mean something,” NYCF stated. “The Governor cannot be allowed to usurp the role of the State Legislature, and the needs of women and girls cannot be brushed aside in a craven attempt to curry favor with transgender activists.”
New York State Conservative Party (NYSCP) Chairman Michael Long also criticized Cuomo for going around the legislature to unilaterally enact a law he couldn't get passed legitimately. “He's starting to consider himself the Czar of New York,” Long commented to the Daily News, “[w]hich he is not.”
When contacted by LifeSiteNews, the NYSCP explained that all citizens should be protected from discrimination, but the transgender bill hasn't passed the state legislature because conservatives oppose “setting up special categories of people to give them special privileges and rights.”
Gay activists are “thrilled.” The host organization called Cuomo's pro-homosexual executive decree idea “historic” and noted, “This sends a message to the country that you can extend protections by any means necessary.” Nicholas Schaefer added that when legislative and judicial means don't come out in your favor, executive strong-arming indicates that “there are many ways to get a solution in the fight.”
“I hope that other governors and other leaders follow Cuomo's example,” Schaefer said.
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Cuomo said 2002 anti-discrimination legislation for homosexuals was “flawed” and needed to add transgenders to those specially protected by the state.
New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms also lobbied against the state's proposed transgender “Bathroom Bill,” explaining that the bill “would force New York employers to accommodate cross-dressing employees in the workplace, would make New York businesses liable for real or invented transgressions upon a civil right to 'gender identity or expression,' and would give intact biological males who assert female gender identities access to women's locker rooms, changing areas, and restrooms in places of public accommodation, thus compromising the privacy and safety of women and girls.”
“The women of New York should ask themselves one question,” NYCF advises. “Would you feel safe if men were allowed to enter women's locker rooms, changing areas, and restrooms while you were using them?”
NYCF continues, “The husbands, fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and brothers of New York should ask similar questions: Do you want men to be allowed to enter women's locker rooms, changing areas, and restrooms when your wives, daughters, granddaughters, nieces, and sisters are using them?”
“Should men who identify as women be allowed to see your female relatives when they are undressed? Should such men be allowed to undress in front of your female relatives?”
Cuomo also pushed the legalization of same-sex marriage through New York's divided legislature, setting a precedent that many states, and President Obama, followed.
In July, Obama's defense secretary announced that the Pentagon is moving to allow transgenders to serve openly in the military by early next year.
After Cuomo decrees the new transgender law, there is a 45-day consultation period before it goes into effect.
Despite being fanatically pro-abortion and anti-marriage, Cuomo still claims to be a Roman Catholic Christian. New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan admitted that he and the governor “differ” on issues, but the Cardinal said he would not question that Cuomo is “a Catholic in good standing.”
