HOUSTON—In a victory for social conservatives, voters in the nation’s fourth-largest city on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure to extend nondiscrimination protections to gay and transgender people.
Known as the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO, the measure would have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, race and a dozen other categories. It was backed heavily by Houston Mayor Annise Parker and a cadre of national Democratic political figures, and proponents poured more than $3 million into the push to pass it.
Supporters conceded defeat on Tuesday evening shortly after the Associated Press called the election in favor of opponents. Roughly 61% of voters opposed the measure and 39% backed it, with 96% of precincts and early voting totals tallied.
The defeat of the bitterly contested ordinance represents a rare recent win for social and religious conservatives, four months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage. Opponents of the measure had argued that the ordinance would infringe on businesses’ religious freedoms. In placards and advertisements, they asserted that it would allow people born as men to freely enter women’s bathrooms.