Nonsense from MoCo Republican Adol Owen-Williams

Montgomery County Republican Central Committee member Adol T. Owen-Williams — the man who shouted out “Heil Hitler” when the County Council passed an ordinance barring discrimination against transgender individuals — has been kind enough to share his reasons for opposing the bill. He writes to the Gazette:

My ‘‘Heil Hitler” comment was clearly directed at the council president for the Nazi-like manner in which she ran the vote and would not tolerate public input. My comment about my fear of dead little girls being found in rest rooms was couched in the context of the infamous Hadden Clark, who is in prison for the deaths of Michelle Dorr and Laura Houghteling. He enjoyed dressing like a woman.

Owen-Williams’s reasoning is neither logical nor consistent with the facts.

Of the hundreds of murders that have taken place in Montgomery County in the past twenty years, two of them were committed by this man who apparently “enjoyed dressing like a woman.”

Did Hadden Clark find his victims while dressed as a woman in a women’s restroom?

No.

Michelle Dorr was a young girl who was a friend and neighbor of Clark’s niece. Clark had lived in the same house as his niece, and he murdered Michelle in his niece’s bedroom. Laura Houghteling was a college graduate killed at her mother’s home, where Hadden Clark worked as a gardener. In both cases, the victims knew Clark. Neither murder had anything to do with men stalking bathrooms disguised as women in order to attack “little girls.”

If some twisted male individual wanted to dress as a woman in order to get into women’s bathrooms to murder little girls, are we really supposed to think that the only thing stopping him is a Montgomery County law on who can use a women’s bathroom?

So Mr. Owen-Williams’s opposition to rights for transgender Marylanders certainly isn’t logical.

What Mr. Owen-Williams does not seem particularly interested in is helping to ensure that transgender Marylanders find any accommodation in the law. If — instead of voicing his loud opposition to this bill — he had come up with alternative reasonable legislation to help transgender individuals live complete and dignified lives, I’d be more likely to view his opposition as principled rather than an expression of simple animus.