AUSTIN — Texas religious conservatives may back a so-called “bathroom bill,” but on Tuesday, faith leaders from an array of denominations gathered at the Capitol to preach a different message.

Backed by supporters from across the state, a coalition that included a rabbi, the leader of an Austin mosque and bishops from two denominations converged on the Capitol. Speakers told a crowd on the south steps that they, and not supporters of proposed “privacy” legislation, represent Texas’ religious mainstream. 

“I keep hearing voices that claim to represent me,” said the Rev. Griff Martin, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Austin. “All Baptists don’t think alike.

“We don’t like people speaking for us, especially when they don’t speak the truth. There are a lot of us concerned about God’s transgender children.”

The day of speeches and visits to lawmakers’ offices came as proponents work to pass a bill requiring transgender people to use restrooms matching the sex listed on their birth certificate in schools and local government buildings.

Senate Bill 3, which passed the Senate last week, would also override nondiscrimination ordinances aimed at letting transgender people use their choice of public bathrooms. 

The special session ends Aug. 18.

Cindy Asmussen, ethics and religious liberty advisor for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, testified in favor of the bill.

According to a recent article in the Southern Baptist Texan, “the SBC affirms ‘God’s good design that gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception — a perception which is often influenced by fallen human nature in ways contrary to God’s design.’”

Also testifying in favor of the proposal were a Houston pastor and a board member of the Concerned Christian Citizens.

But Kimberly Shappley, an ordained non-denominational evangelical minister and nurse from the Houston suburb of Pearland said her child, a transgender daughter who’s 6 years old, is already being harmed by a rule that limits her from using any restroom besides the school nurses’.

When the nurse is away and there’s nowhere for the child to use the restroom, “she has had potty accidents at school,” Shappley said. 

“My daughter is being segregated from her peers because she’s perceived to be different,” Shappley said after the speeches. “It’s called segregation.”

The Rev. Diane McGehee of Houston’s Bering Memorial Methodist Church also sounded a note from the civil rights movement when she told the crowd — some 320 people signed up to participate in the interfaith lobby day — that her father marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s to end discrimination.

“We had bathroom bills in the 1960s,” McGehee said. “They were wrong then and they are wrong now.” 

However, there’s a difference in the bathroom-bill battle, Shappley said.

“Transgender people have been using the bathroom they want to use and it’s never been an issue,” she said. “We’re fighting to hang onto a right we’ve always had.”

Restroom-use legislation, championed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, died in the regular session. 

Gov. Greg Abbott added “privacy” legislation to his special-session priority list, something House Speaker Joe Straus said was “a pile of manure,” according to a June Houston Chronicle report.

A recent poll of Republican primary voters, conducted by the Texas Association of Business, found that over 60 percent of respondents in five GOP-controlled legislative districts across the Texas said a bathroom bill “is unnecessary and distracts from the real issues facing Texas today,” Jeff Moseley, the association’s CEO, said in a statement.

The Rev. Dan DeLeon of Friends Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in College Station hasn’t testified to any committees about the bill, but he does hear from folks in his community on the issue.

“What I’m discovering is, now that we’re talking about this, the more folks hear about transgender people, we realize that we’re neighbors,” DeLeon said. “That cuts through the political divide.”

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com.