The blue enclave of Houston in deeply red Texas has become the newest epicenter in the fight between religious freedom advocates and activist politicians looking to use their communities as laboratories for left-wing social engineering.

Annise Parker, Houston’s term-limited and openly gay mayor, wants to make a so-called “equal rights” ordnance the capstone of her legacy as executive of the nation’s fourth largest city.

Among its provisions, the ordinance would prohibit and even impose fines of up to $5,000 for preventing transgender persons from using the public restroom of their choice.

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She has gone to alarming lengths to get this done, triggering outrage by subpoenaing the sermons of local pastors who opposed her agenda, a move that by any measure constitutes a frightening intrusion on freedom of speech and religion.

The subpoenas were withdrawn after a round of lawsuits, but the push to enact the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, known as HERO, continued via other unnerving means.

Despite a massive signature drive from 50,000 residents urging the Houston City Council to put HERO up for a public vote, the council refused on the grounds that the petition was invalid — although it had more than 30,000 more signatures than  needed to force a referendum.

The Texas Supreme Court stepped in and said the ordinance should be thrown out entirely or put to public vote. Unwilling to accept immediate defeat, the council opted for the referendum.

So on Nov. 3,  Houston voters will finally have an official say on HERO.

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The ordinance would prohibit discrimination based on 15 different criteria – including military service, sexual orientation, and gender identity. But the public debate over Proposition 1, as it is called on the ballot, has centered on whether Houstonians are willing to elevate equal rights for transgender persons above and beyond the privacy and safety of public restrooms.

The battle is growing uglier by the day. Local icons who have spoken up in opposition to what’s been labeled the “bathroom bill,” such as Houston Texans owner Bob McNair and former Houston Astros slugger Lance Berkman, have been tarred and feathered by pro-gay activists such as Chris Kluwe, a former NFL punter.

The measure “would allow troubled men who claim to be women to enter women’s bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms.”

This week, Kluwe wrote a scathing open letter calling McNair a “billionaire homophobe” and blasted him for donating $10,000 to a group opposing Proposition 1. Berkman, the popular former baseball player, was attacked on Twitter by the mayor for appearing in an ad expressing concerns over his daughters’ potential exposure to men using women’s restrooms.

HERO “would allow troubled men who claim to be women to enter women’s bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms,” Berkman states in the TV ad. “It’s better to prevent this danger by closing women’s restrooms to men rather than waiting for a crime to happen.”

Related: Kids and the Transgender Issue

Proponents of Proposition 1 claim that rules prohibiting transgender males from using female restrooms are akin to Jim Crow laws that banned blacks from using white-only restrooms and water fountains, and that granting such freedoms is only a small step toward securing a more free and egalitarian society.

Tony Perkins, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, disagrees. He sees HERO as a slippery slope that will lead to more erosion of traditional gender roles and freedom of conscience.

“Proposition 1 is about a lot more than even bathrooms,” he said in a statement. “It’s about criminalizing religious liberty. The ordinance also gives the government new grounds to impose punishing fines on bakers, florists, planners, musicians and others who refuse to yield their religious beliefs to this new morality.”

As other cities and states consider their own measures to address the transgender restrooms issue, the outcome of Proposition 1 in Houston will have wide repercussions.