ISBL Asshat of the Week: Fayetteville Councilman John La Tour

John La Tour is a Tea Party conservative, a Fayetteville, Arkansas city councilman, and is supported by those bastions of Christianity, the Duggars.

Needless to say he’s also an asshat; in fact, he’s the ISBL Asshat of the Week.

La Tour has been accused of confronting a woman inside the Arsaga restaurant whom he assumed to be trans and threatening to wave his penis at her. He was subsequently asked by the management to leave the establishment which he did; he went home and took to Facebook to post a since-deleted rant about how “Everyone who lives in Fayetteville, AR should never eat or treat themselves at any of Cary Arsaga's establishments. I will never go to any of these again.”

Huh. I wonder what actually happened. Well, thanks the goddesses for Facebook — it’s not just for cat videos and pictures of what you ate for dinner last night — another Fayetteville resident, Gavin Smith, posted his view of what happened:

“Yesterday fayetteville alderman John la tour ward 4 assaulted a dear friend in public demanding they choose a gender in a packed restaurant. He demanded she pick a gender declaiming loudly that he couldn’t tell if she was a man or a woman. She is not transgendered and does not in any way present any ambiguity about gender in any way. She’s a woman. He then explained that he was a man and could prove it by dropping his pants and showing his penis. That is bullying behavior and unacceptable on so many levels. Please call any news outlets you know and alert them to his “protests”. I doubt offering to expose yourself would be considered protected speech even by the right wing activist Dugger [sic] family who funded his campaign. He should be kicked out of office.”

John La Tour, after removing his Facebook rant, has admitted he was at the restaurant, but that his words were misconstrued. He is now saying that he simply asked the woman — who works at the restaurant and doesn’t want to be named — to dance and he asked her like this:

“You can declare you’re a man or you’re a woman, whatever you want to. I’m not going to ask a man to dance with me. I am a man and I can prove it.”

Sounds like exactly what he was accused of saying, which just shows that asshats are also stupid. And, of course, laying the blame for his own misdeeds on other people:

 “They know I’m conservative; they’re terribly disappointed I’m on the City Council. All that this is about is to discredit John La Tour and make him look like a buffoon.”

No, sir, you’ve made yourself look like a buffoon. A transphobic pervert who wants to prove his manhood by threatening to show off his shortcomings in a crowded restaurant.

John La Tour, the ISBL Asshat of the week.

LGBTQ Nation

Fayetteville Passes An LGBT Anti-Discrimination Ordinance ... Finally

Last year, Fayetteville Arkansas voters overwhelmingly struck down an anti-LGBT discrimination ordinance following a series of lying robo-calls from Michelle Duggar and her clan.

My, how times have changed. This week Fayetteville voters resoundingly ratified the city’s Uniform Civil Rights Protection ordinance in what I’d like to call the Anti-Duggar Vote. The ordinance is scheduled to take effect November 7, though it faces a challenge from Protect Fayetteville, a group that believes in discrimination.

The Uniform Civil Rights Protection ordinance prohibits discrimination in employment, housing and places of public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and creates a seven-member Civil Rights Commission to review complaints.

The moment the votes were  counted and they knew they’d lost, Protect Fayetteville filed a lawsuit seeking to void the ordinance, saying it was improperly referred to voters at a June 16 City Council meeting. And, they claimed, the ordinance is illegal under Act 137, which prohibits cities and counties from enacting or enforcing legislation “that creates a protected classification or prohibits discrimination on a basis not contained in state law.”

The Arkansas Civil Rights Act of 1993 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin and disability but not based on someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, though sexual orientation and gender identity are referenced in a section of state law that deals with bullying in public schools.

City Attorney Kit Williams begs to differ:

“The protected classifications are certainly there in state law, and, therefore, this is not a new protected classification.”

Let me make this queer: it’s wrong to deny service to, evict someone from a home because, or deny them employment because they are LGBT. It’s that simple: discrimination is wrong so, good on you Fayetteville, for doing the right thing and treating all of your citizens equally.

And, well, Shallow Bob is kinda gloating because this is just another smackdown of those holier-than-thou-hypocrite Duggars.

But, and this is important, there are still many places in Arkansas, and in many states in this country, where you can be fried, denied housing, denied service for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. This victory, while important, is just a small step in the ongoing march ...

NWA Online