Massachusetts may have its flaws, but recently it displayed one of its positive attributes.

We, in the majority, at least, do not take away rights from people. We extend them and preserve them in the ongoing effort to establish equality.

According to state law, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender persons in Massachusetts have the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexuals.

Historically this has actually been so since 1843, but with few people knowing that, in 1989 Massachusetts passed a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in credit, public and private employment, union practices, housing, and public accommodation.  Obviously this applied to the understanding of sexual orientation at the time, but just as with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, which at the time of the Constitution’s ratification meant muskets, like the ever growing list of arms developed over time, sexual orientation includes those aspects of it as our understanding grows.

As with guns, this should be automatic, but guns being more respected than people, this was not necessarily true.

In 2011, Governor Deval Patrick issued an executive order banning discrimination on the part of the state government or its contractors regarding Transgender employees, and expressed his support for legislation to extend similar protection to all transgender persons state-wide. And, as it had done in 1989, Massachusetts enacted legislation prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity in credit, public and private employment, union practices and housing. Missing, however, was public accommodations.

In 2016, the state Senate voted 33–4 to approve the bill “An Act Relative to Transgender Anti-Discrimination”  to correct this, the House  passed a bill by a vote of 117-36 to include gender identity to the public accommodations law, and Republican Governor, Charlie Baker, signed it into law.

Rights were not denied, but were recognized.

Immediately, however, opponents of this submitted the minimum number of signatures necessary to put the law up for repeal as a statewide ballot measure. If they had prevailed, it would have meant that for the first time in state history, the citizens who enjoyed their unchallenged rights would vote to remove those of others.

But on November 6, 2018 people in Massachusetts voted to retain the law and the rights of Transgender people.

Here in Massachusetts we recognize people’s rights. We do not take them away.

But it doesn’t mean that small minded people with political agendas and aspirations don’t try.

And one of those is the sheriff of Bristol County Massachusetts, Thomas Hodgson, who is opposing a ballot measure that would make, actually keep, the state a sanctuary state, and is employing his usual tactic of just saying things that sound scary but offering nothing to back them, even refusing to offer supporting facts when asked in television interviews.

It was obvious from events in other places, that the equality of man was often left up to the personal, religious, and political beliefs of individuals or groups, so in 1843, Massachusetts added to the General laws Part 1:Title XV: Section 102 which states,

 “All persons within the commonwealth, regardless of sex, race, color, creed or national origin, shall have, except as is otherwise provided or permitted by law, the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens, to make and enforce contracts, to inherit, purchase, to lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”

There are no qualifiers, and in spite of people who might say this law only applied to former slaves or legal citizens, there is nothing in the wording that says that. And, for those who claim it is an old law and loses out to time, the state’s Blue Laws that banned certain activities on Sunday were enacted in 1797 and lasted 185 years before their repeal by legislative action in the early 1980s. The equality law is younger, only 176 years old.

According to the sheriff’s broad and unsupported opinion, allowing the state to remain the sanctuary state it has been since 1843 would make streets less safe for the public and law enforcement by allowing a person who commits a crime to avoid arrest.

That is a lie.

He claims a law banning sanctuary cities in the state would send a clear message that we’re not interested in ignoring the laws of the nation.

Not only does he not present any statistics that show the public, the streets, and law enforcement are less safe because of undocumented people to support his fear mongering, he misrepresents safe communities and sanctuary cities and states like he is trying to keep a child in bed by warning about the monster under it. Don’t just tell me there is a monster under the bed, show it to me or I will look for myself and see there is nothing there.

If you are one who seeks a few moments of peaceful silence, might I suggest you ask the sheriff for statistics to back a claim, and you will get what you seek.

He relies on the avoidance of facts to support his biases because facts do not support them, and does this in a state known for having a highly educated population.

First, he claims undocumented people do not face arrest so he can lead people to believe that there are people roaming the streets with immunity to the law, and to have them believe what he is doing protects us from what in reality is just not there.

Sanctuary and safe states and communities limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agents in order to protect low-priority immigrants from deportation, while at the same time turning over those who have committed serious crimes.

If any of us is pulled over for speeding, a broken taillight, or a broken license plate light we present a license and registration. There is no reason to, at that time, demand citizenship papers of anyone else in the car. If any of us calls the police to our house or to a car accident, there is no need to have our citizenship questioned.

And if anyone of us who dresses a certain way, looks a certain way, or congregates with people not necessarily of a popular group, we should not accept that our citizenship has to be randomly questioned.

After so many years, the drug is also first checked completely by the concerned authorities and is also given canadian cialis online an approval by FDA which makes it extremely popular among individuals who do not like swallowing tablets with water. In the former case you will not be able to get erection also. online viagra Erectile dysfunction is a condition in cialis 5 mg navigate to these guys which a man loses this ability to achieve an erection, then not simply will he lose his libido and ability to have proper erections in the bed. Also, men with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes have also been linked with infertility. low cost viagra But, if anyone is caught in the commission of a crime for which anyone could be arrested, that arrest is made, a background check is run, and follow up steps taken accordingly.

Who of us does not find holiday traffic check points not only annoying, but an intrusion when we are simply driving to the store and are pulled over only because we are on the road with no evidence beyond our being behind the wheel that we might be guilty of drinking, while we have no problem when the guy weaving in traffic erratically is?

In one case there is a reason, but just being is no reason.

Sanctuary cities and states merely prevent all of us from living with perpetual checkpoints.

Police cannot detain anyone who hasn’t at least been suspected of a crime, and even if a police officer does arrest someone suspected of committing a crime, if that person is cleared, they must let that person go, and if a charge sticks, after bail is posted, or jail time completed for whatever the arrest was made, that person should be let go as well.

ICE can raid places where people congregate like workplaces, bars, social clubs, and even annual festivals, like the huge Portuguese one in New Bedford, hoping they can find someone to arrest, but in a sanctuary city the local police won’t do that while they will arrest the drunk on the street causing trouble.

How cooperative with local law enforcement will a community be if members are living on a World War II Nazi movie set?

Beyond carefully misdefining sanctuary communities, cities, and states, the sheriff attempts to misrepresent the realities of Bristol County whose safety he claims as his mission.

On a scale of 1-100 in ascending order, when it comes to violent crimes, including murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault Bristol County’s rating for violent crime is 16.2, 6.5 below the national average of 22.7, while on property crime, like burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson, it’s rating is 23.4, or 9.3 below the national rating, according to the  American Community Survey (ACS) an ongoing survey that provides vital information on a yearly basis about our nation and its people.

Locally it falls below the Massachusetts state rating and that of the nearby Providence-Warwick Rhode Island metro area.

According to a Website funded through a grant from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Justice Programs, and the U.S. Department of Justice, crime has gone down.

By using the loaded phrase “criminal illegals”, he further attempts to fix a negative image in people’s minds by associating the undocumented with crime, and presenting the fiction that crime is rampant in cities where we live.

Newton, Massachusetts, a sanctuary city, consistently listed as one of the state’s and the nation’s safest cities,  was joined this year by Somerville, also a sanctuary city.

Social-science research on immigration and crime consistently shows that undocumented immigrants are considerably less likely to commit crime than native-born people. If you are here “illegally” and face possible deportation if discovered, it is obvious that it is to your advantage to keep out of the spotlight that committing crimes will shine on you.

And what crimes they might commit will most likely be within their own communities not the community at large.

The Cato Institute has found that native-born residents were much more likely to be convicted of a crime than immigrants in the country legally or illegally, and this applies to homicide and property crimes.

The journal Criminology found places with higher percentages of undocumented immigrants do not have higher rates of crime, but, rather, states with larger shares of undocumented immigrants tended to have lower crime rates than states with smaller shares.

Its study found that not only does illegal immigration not increase crime, it may actually contribute to the drop in overall crime rates.

The sheriff does not present any facts or studies when he makes his claims, and has actually responded to a request in a televised interview for anything to back his claim, that it was common sense.

Law enforcement action should be based on facts as opposed common sense especially when the person advocating for its use stood in a dense crowd of thousands at an annual festival within a cramped fenced in area drinking strong wine with his service revolver hanging on his hip with no indication he was law enforcement outside his jurisdiction beyond a printed sheriff’s badge on his knit, pullover jersey.

He also likes to combine crimes committed by those living here without documentation with those who are non-citizens here temporarily whether for vacations or long term, but, again, temporary, stays.

Another tactic employed is to claim a higher rate of crime by simply giving a figure of the number of crimes committed by a group, while omitting the figure it is supposed to be higher than. Why? Because no matter what the figure is, it could still be lower than the unmentioned other.

And you cannot really go by the number of people incarcerated as an honest assessment of  any particular group’s crime rates if you cannot guarantee that the law is applied equally without prejudice.

Sending African-American students to the office while the same offense committed by a White student results in a small heart to heart talk in the hall outside the classroom door may seem to back the impression that more Black Kids are sent to the office than White ones, but it is only by application that this is so. What needs to be looked at is how many of both groups actually deserved to be sent.

The sheriff wants the people pf Massachusetts to ignore our history when it comes to how we treat people. He’s hoping to be the one who gets us to remove the rights of people so he can put a notch on his bigotry bed post.

We have shown, and recently, that that is not who we are.