Final Ruling Issued In Houston Drag Queen Story Time Federal Case

The final ruling was issued yesterday in the Houston Drag Queen Story Time case, and the hatemongers lost

Chief District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal issued he final ruling yesterday swatting away the evilgelicals attempt to shut down the event  in a case that was filed back in October.

Rosenthal granted the city of Houston's request to terminate the case, stating the court didn't have jurisdiction because the plaintiffs didn't have standing to sue, and the plaintiffs had failed to establish that the freedom of religion clause had been violated by the storytellers.

The haters contended that program where drag queens read books at the Montrose library violated the freedom of religion of library patrons.

Yeah, right.

They argued in court documents that drag queens and transgender storytellers would 'indoctrinate children to believe in another religion', which the suit identifies as Secular Humanism. The activists believe the storytellers would 'groom children at the event to become transgender.'
Excuse me for a moment while I double over in laughter at that last delusional sentence in that paragraph.

The Houston Public Library in a previous court filing, explained their rationale for hosting the Drag Queen Story Time events

“Throughout their history, American public libraries have been on the front lines of promoting inclusivity and dispelling intolerance. The Houston Public Library is committed to celebrating the diverse and culturally rich communities here in Houston through a broad array of programs and resources we offer. All our programs are free, open to the public, and accessible by choice,” the legal filing stated.

The fake faith based haters plan to appeal   They tried to spin their crushing legal defeat as 'happiness the case is out of Judge Rosenthal's hands'.   Judge Rosenthal was appointed by President George HW Bush.

Mayor Turner and the HPL declined comment concerning the ruling.

Houston Suburban Hate Pastors Hating On Drag Queen Storytime

Seems like because they're living their boring life in the 'burbs of Katy and Magnolia, Dave Welch and Steven Hotze have nothing better to do than meddle in Houston business.

Drag Queen Storytime was started back in November 2017 by Darius Vallier, a drag queen known as Blackberri for his bearded lady persona.

Vallier was invited by Brazos Bookstore last June to headline its Drag Queen Story Hour for LGBTQ Pride Month.   The event was a smashing success, and the Houston Public Library hired Vallier to host its own Drag Queen Storytime event at the Freed- Montrose Neighborhood Library.

KHOU-TV 11 recently broadcast a story on July 9 about the Drag Queen Storytime event at the Heights Public Library, and that was enough to get the attention of At-Large Councilmember Michael Kubosh and his reprehensible right wing friends.

The Katy based Hotze runs the SPLC certified hate group Conservative Republicans of Texas, and wasted no time sticking his nose in Houston business after being given the heads up by Kubosh at a July 17 council meeting by attacking the event as 'inappropriate for children.' . 

Hotze demanded that the city kill the Drag Queen Storytime, and compared it to pedophilia. 

Really fool?  Since when do you have credibility to talk about anything since A, you don't live in the city of Houston and B, you run a hate group.  Welch and his US Pastors Council are now joining the fray since the DQSH program is a nationwide one they have been sleeping on. .

Meanwhile the Houston GLBT Caucus has weighed in with a statement supporting the event.

But the big mic drop comment belongs to Vallier.

“I do it for me and the kids, not for attention,” said Blackberri, aka Darius Vallier. “I strive for a better tomorrow where hate and ignorance is overshadowed by love and acceptance. I didn’t even know the news was going to be there, so I am happy that accepting people now know about the programs. If anyone thinks that a drag queen taking the time out of their day to read to children and make them smile is a problem, they are more than welcome to volunteer their time like I did and read to children themselves.”

Nope.  Hotze, Welch and all their hate pastors are too busy gleefully coordinating oppression against the Texas TBLGQ community to take time out of their day to read to kids like you are doing.

It Is Not Godly To Oppress Trans People

He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both [are] abomination to the LORD.   Proverbs 17:15

One of the things that bothers me as a Christian is when our right wing pseudo faith based opposition tries to hide behind Scripture and use it to justify their bigotry and hatred.

It is a centuries old tactic for conservatives to try to use the Bible as a shield in their attempts to other and demonize people, and now they are attempting to do so against transgender people.

The Southern Baptist denomination made it the official policy of their church in 2014 to hate trans people, following the Roman Catholic Church in doing so.

One of the basic commandments of our faith is to love thy neighbor as you love yourself.  It's obvious these faux faith based so called 'christians' hate themselves since they are so busy spending their time and hate orgs money bearing false witness against transgender people.

And the most odious part of their transphobic hate rants is that they are aiming them at transgender kids and their parents

I have a major problem with that.   My pissivity about it is heightened even further when you try to claim that God is on your side when you spout your loud and wrong facts free anti trans comments

God hates injustice and the people who push it.  It's even more odious when you pastors are getting paid to push anti-trans hatred for your personal and political gain at trans kids and their parents who unconditionally love them.

Hate is not a Texas value, much less a value in our Christian faith tradition.  Love is.

It is not godly to oppress trans people, and if you pseudo faith bathed oppressors keep pushing that bald faced lie, you will reap what you sow, and the trans folks you are trying to oppress will be standing tall as your efforts to oppress them continue to fail.

Protest Of Texas Transphobes Today

The Lone Star Transphobes are gathering for a Texas Pastors Policy Briefing starting around 10 AM at Hyde Park Baptist Church, and our reprehensible lieutenant governor. attorney general and Sen. Lois Kolkhorst are just some of the Texas GOP peeps scheduled to be in the hate house.

A protest and peaceful vigil is being coordinated starting at 8:45 AM.

So if you're in the ATX area, have some free time and want to just let your feelings be known about SB 6 and other unjust legislation that the Texas Republicans are trying to force upon our great state, have fun participating in this peaceful protest.on the sidewalk at Hyde Park Baptist Church.

It's located at 3901 Speedway in Austin, and if you can make it,, the organizers of this protest would love to have you there expressing to our state's leaders there will be no hate in the Lone Star State


 

Arkansas Anti-TBLG Rights Spokesperson Turns Out To Be Sexual Predator

One of the tactics in the opposition tool box is what is called projection.   You take an undesirable behavior of yours and project it onto your opponent whether they are guilty of it or not.

One of the things our right wing opponents have been beating like a drum in the opposition to LGBT inclusive human rights laws is the widely discredited trans bathroom predator meme, when the reality is the bathroom predators predominately are white males who aren't getting dressed in drag to enter bathrooms to prey upon women.    The conservafools doing the loudest squawking about it usually are the ones engaged in the predatory behavior they ascribe to others.

We have our latest example of right wing projection tactics blowing up in their face in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.     Eureka Springs on February 9 passed a non discrimination law covering BTLG people that a coalition of conservative businessmen and pastors are trying to overturn in a May 12 referendum , and they are employing heaping helpings of lies and faith based transphobia to do so.

Turns out that one of their spokeskneegrows, 60 year old pastor Acra Lee Turner, who has been loudly bearing false witness against the local LGBT community, is living in a glass house of his own.

Turner, who since April 15 has been pastor of Penn Memorial Baptist Church in Eureka Springs,  was revealed by the Arkansas Times to be a convicted sex offender. 

As a 22 year old, the was convicted in 1977 of sexual assault in Stephens County, Oklahoma and sentenced to three concurrent sentences of 30-60 for three counts of rape.   One of the people he sexually assaulted was an 80 year old woman who was beaten so badly she was almost unrecognizable.

He was paroled in August 2000 over the objections of the families who were victimized by Turner.  His crimes also predate the establishment of the Oklahoma State Sex Offender Registry.

Turner has also been pimping the lie the anti-HERO ministers tried to push here in Houston until I and other Black LGBT Houstonians gleefully had fun destroying it in several hearings, that  LGBT civil rights are not a human rights issue.

No LGBT person says Turner, "has been lynched, no one has to sit on the back of the bus. It's not a human rights issue, it's a human behavior issue."

Two words for you homes on the LGBT human rights issue:  Bayard Rustin.   Coretta Scott King also has stated numerous times along with countless others in our community including myself and the federal government that LGBT rights ARE an international human rights issue. 

And you're the last one that needs to be talking about human behavioral issues.

As for the tired lynching line, try telling that BS talking point to Matthew Shepard's family.  Or reciting it to Paul Broussard's family.  Or try uttering it to the families of the hundreds of transpeople who have been murdered because of the anti-trans hate you and your TERF allies have been spreading.  

While the haters haven't been hanging LGBT peeps from trees, far too many of us are getting murdered, and when it comes to trans people, they disproportionately look like us.. Bottom line is that you are hypocritically being played by white conservatives who don't give a rats anus about your Black convicted sexual predator behind to oppose a human rights law.

And you and your friends aren't Christians, you're the purveyors of the 'dry as dust' religion that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr warned us about.

Hate Preachers Hatin' On ABC Invite To Bishop Flunder

The predominately American Baptist College in Nashville, TN is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA, the second largest African-American Christian denomination in the US behind the COGIC.

The ABC is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, and has for the last 57 years held the Garnett-Nabrit Lecture Series in which over several days invites ministers from around the country and the world to talk to ABC students on their Nashville campus to discuss social justice issues.

This year, one of the people invited to this 58th annual edition of the Garnett-Nabrit lecture series that runs from March 14-18 in addition to the Rev Dr Allan Aubrey Boesak of South Africa and Pastor Delmon Coates is Bishop Yvette Flunder of the City of Refuge UCC in San Francisco

And as you probably guessed, the hate preachers started tripping about her March 18 invitation to speak

Two Texas based hate preachers, Pastor William. Dwight McKissic, Sr. of Cornerstone Church in Arlington, TX and Pastor Randy Vaughn of Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Port Arthur, TX  started the mess that resulted in a March 5 press release from the National Baptist Fellowship of Concerned Pastors that centers around the fact that Bishop Flunder is "legally married to a woman" and asserted that because they invited her, the American Baptist College and National Baptist Convention, USA by association are endorsing same-sex marriage.   

They demanded the American Baptist College rescind her invitation to speak, which the ABC refused to do

The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists and faith leaders from across the Baptist faith traditions issued their own press release on March 9 in support of Dr. Harris, the Board of Trustees of American Baptist College,  Dr. Jerry Young and the Board members of the National Baptist Convention, USA which reads in part:

"We applaud the wisdom, prophetic courage, and commitment to intellectual honesty and academic integrity that Dr. Forrest Harris has demonstrated as President of American Baptist College by inviting Bishop Yvette Flunder of California to preach and lecture at American Baptist College later this month.  A few vocal opponents to equality for persons who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender are trying to force Dr. Harris to "dis-invite" Bishop Flunder because she is a lesbian who married her same-sex partner.  Those critics also are displeased that Dr. Harris invited Dr. Allan Aubrey Boesak of South Africa and Pastor Delmon Coates of the United States to preach and/or lecture at American Baptist College because Dr. Boesak and Pastor Coates are effective advocates for equality and are equally effective in exposing the injustice of homophobia."  

In addition, Rev Robin R. Lunn, the Executive Director of AWAB, stated in rebuttal to the misguided preachers:

"To say that Baptist schools do not invite legally married same gender loving faith leaders to speak is to deny the reality that currently exists.  Many Baptist affiliated schools from across the traditions have invited LGBTQ faith leaders to participate in various programs, to lecture and preach as professionals in their fields.  I applaud Dr. Harris and the American Baptist College Board of Trustees for fostering a rich educational and religious environment that allows for a broad range of beliefs and practices." 

The hate ministers aren't giving up, and they have threatened to come to Nashville to picket Bishop Flunder's appearance.   We'll see.

Daddy Cruz Pimps The Transphobia

I have no love for the junior senator from Alberta, but I have even less love for his conservaevangelist father Rafael Cruz.

Rafael has been colluding with Dave Welch and some of our Houston sellout kneegrow ministers to overturn the trans inclusive non-discrimination ordinance that the Dallas area suburban city of Plano, TX passed and our passed in May 2014 Houston Equal Rights Ordinance that is now in court.

Daddy Cruz got caught on tape saying some jacked up crap about transpeople to cookie chomping kneegrow E.W Jackson, including the mind blowing comment that trans people simply using the bathrooms will bring on the Apocalypse.

Now I know where Ted Junior got his conservaidiocy from.

Since we transpeople are so powerful, I suggest we test out Daddy Cruz's theory by rolling down to Steve 'Swastika Cakes' Riggle's Haterdome  and use the bathrooms matching our gender presentation.

As a TransGriot public service, I've got the video posted so you can laugh your behinds off at the words coming out of his mouth.  

But it's this type of anti-trans hate speech that creates the climate for trans people to be killed, and I'm tired of it going unchecked and unridiculed  

It's also a reminder that this is the mentality that we are fighting for our human rights against and this type of unhinged foaming at the mouth devoid of logic transphobic hate cannot be reasoned with.

You have to destroy it.

Houston Trans Woman Attacked, And I'm Pissed About It

Because of the anti-trans hate speech coming from the kneegrow hate ministers of the Baptist Minsters Association of Houston and Vicinity in relation to the HERO passage battle, and it being greeted with silence from other local Black ministers and Black media outlets not called TransGriot, I was beginning to wonder when it would result in Houston area transpeople being attacked or God forbid, killed because of it.

Unfortunately, I got my answer Thursday.

According to an About magazine article, a  gang of seven people attacked Thailand Warr, who is also known as the popular Houston based female illusionist DeyJzah Opulent Mirage,  in the lobby of her Southwest Houston high-rise condo complex as she was preparing to get into a waiting cab for a performance at the Houston Improv.

She was confronted by a group of five Black men and two Black women, all in their late teens to early twenties, who she said smelled of marijuana.   She sustained injuries to her head, upper body and breasts, along with scratches across her chest when they tried to expose her breasts.

I'm attempting to get in contact with Ms. Warr and find out how she's doing along with the rest of the Houston area TBLG community.  If there are any efforts organized that need some additional love from y'all locally and nationall, I'll let you know ASAP.

But right now I'm going to focus the rest of this post on the kneegrow ministers that have been priming the pump for anti-trans violence to erupt with their hate speech as many Houston Black church leaders, our leading organizations like the local NAACP and Urban League, and media outlets like KCOH-AM and KMJQ-FM among others say nothing to condemn the sellout pastors..

Well, if y''all won't say anything, Moni will.

I and the Houston Black transgender community, in a year in which we lost 11 trans people of color in the USA, and with ten of them being African-American, are beyond sick and tired of the cricket chirping silence coming from the Houston Black church about these murders and assaults on trans people when y'all always have a fracking opinion about other crap as demonstrated in the HERO battle you know nothing about

And the fact this attack happened to Ms Warr on November 20, the day we memorialize our lost sisters, wasn't lost on me or anyone else in the trans community and our allies.

What angers me still further is because of your hatred, (yes, hatred) of transgender, gay and lesbian individuals, you real life Uncle Ruckuses have entered into an unholy alliance with Dave Welch and his conservative Republican friends to attempt to kill a much needed human rights ordinance we have NEVER had for our city. 

The attack on Ms Warr is a prime example of exactly why we need the HERO to be implemented without further delay.

And I have nothing but contempt for you for doing so and allowing yourselves to be the useful fools fronting this effort to kill HERO.

Thailand Warr is one of the few anti-trans assaults we are aware of.   How many more have transpired since you started your rhetorical attack on the Houston trans community that we are not privy to and the victims have declined to report them?

Yes, I'm grateful that Ms Warr survived the attack and I pray for her speedy recovery.  I hope the ignorant wastes of DNA who did this face justice.  But I blame the Baptist Ministers Assn. of Houston and Vicinity for sowing the anti-trans seeds at the behest of their massas in the white conservative led Pastor's Council that have now borne poisonous fruit in Ms Warr's life.

The next trans person that gets attacked by a gang of people inside Beltway 8 may not be so fortunate.

Where you at Houston Black church?    Where are your voices of condemnation for this attack Houston NAACP and Houston Urban League for starters?   Where are you Houston Black Area Democrats?  

And where are you Majic 102 and KCOH-AM?   Both of your stations can provide platforms for the sellout ministers and HERO opponents to speak and demonize the Houston African-American trans community, but you can't (or won't) provide a platform for us to rebut the scurrilous and demonstrably false charges aimed at us?

I' eagerly await the answers to those questions along with our allies

Naw, You Don't Have The Right To Discriminate

If y'all thought I was being harsh for calling yesterday's star studded event at Riggleworld a hate rally, peep these shirts that were being worn by some of the attendees.

Meanwhile, the Houston LGBT community spent the day role modeling what Christianity is really supposed to be like.

Contrary to the lies you were told from the Grace KKKommunity Church stage, you DON'T have the right to discriminate against gay folks or anybody else, and that goes double if you think (and yeah I'm going there) because of your white skin and that vanillacentric privilege you're swimming in you do.

And bigotry wrapped in scripture and prayer is still bigotry.  As a Christian I'm beyond sick and tired of right wing conservafools hiding behind the Bible to push their reactionary political agenda.

Oh yeah Steve. it's been T+5 months since HERO passage, and there have STILL been no bakers in the Houston city limits forced to bake swastika cakes as you  predicted.

Don't think that non-white folks like myself didn't notice the overwhelming whiteness of the room, the suburban location of the hate rally, or the speakers flown in for this event who are heavily involved in GOP political circles and the anti-LGBT industry.

Religious Freedom' doesn't mean, 'I get to be as bigoted, hateful and intolerant as I want to peeps I despise and you can't call me on it."    

As I said during the HERO battle and will continue to say it, you don't like me or anyone else in the trans, bi and SGL community calling you haters and bigots, stop behaving like it.

What it means is you can have whatever religious beliefs you wish.  What you can't do is try to forcibly impose them upon me, or use political power to do so. 

In a pluralistic society that has multiple faiths and even allows you the right to not have a religious faith preference if you so choose, that's the way it needs to be.

As my homegirl Christina Gorczynski said in an interview yesterday, "Religious freedom and equality go together, they're not mutually exclusive."

But unfortunately, some of y'all in your zeal to rewrite history and christopimp forgot that salient point.
 

SBC Officially Hates The Trans Community

Count the Southern Baptists along with the Roman Catholic Church as a religious denomination that officially has an anti-transgender policy.  

Yesterday the faith based Southern Baptist bigots at their conference in Baltimore continued their nearly decade long history of ramping up hatred of transpeople by overwhelmingly passed the Denny Burk proposed resolution that condemns trans people.

Why am I not surprised the 5000 messengers (convention delegates) went there?  The Southern Baptists already have a long negative history of being on the wrong side of all the human rights movements of the 19th and 20th century.   By hating on transpeople, they keep their reprehensible streak of misguided white privileged hatred for people not like them going into the 21st century. 

And naw, you SBC peeps electing Ronnie Floyd as your president with the same homophobic baggage isn't going to distract us.  Neither will it change the fact this was faith-based transphobia at a scale not seen since the Catholic Church unleashed their anti-trans doctrine in 2003.

That Catholic anti-trans doctrine is a contributing factor to the off the charts anti-trans violence my Latina trans sisters experience in Latin America and my eastern European trans sisters deal with.  

SBC, you were on the wrong side of history in terms of supporting slavery, Jim Crow segregation, opposing women's suffrage, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, interracial marriage, and marriage equality.

Now you can add hatred of trans people to that list.   And the mind blowing thing about this passed resolution is that you arrogantly put yourselves on the opposite side of the words of Jesus himself in pushing this hate on trans people policy. 

For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. 
Matthew 19:12

As a matter of fact, here's some more words from the Good Book that point out just how off the rails y'all are before I even begin to drop the avalanche of scientific research done on and about transpeople you faith based fools obviously are ignoring. 

Your hatred of trans people is not going reverse the two decade old trend of declining membership at SBC affiliated churches.  Neither will it make your denomination attractive to young people and other fair minded folks who count transpeople among their friends and relatives.

But thanks SBC for doing the trans community and our allies a favor and letting us know exactly where we stand with you.  You Satan's helpers are officially an enemy to our community just like the trans exterminationalist radical feminists (TERF's) and will be treated as such from this day forward. 

Transphobic bigotry wrapped in scripture is still transphobic bigotry, and that salient fact isn't going to change no matter what y'all told yourselves after that vote.

And the only way you'll see trans people darkening the doors of your church sanctuaries is protesting outside of them.
 

Southern Baptists Considering Officially Hating On Trans People

When I lived in Louisville, my house was across the street from the odious Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.   I woke every morning in my upstairs bedroom with a view of the married student quarters of the seminary and its administration building.

To the Louisville activist and TBLG community, they were the 'Bad Seminary' because of the Southern Baptist denomination's ultra conservative views, loud and wrong opposition to LGBT rights, support of slavery and Jim Crow segregation and their more than a century old penchant for being on the wrong side of human rights fights.

The 'Good Seminary', the nearby Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary by comparison has been the lead sponsor and host of Louisville TDOR events since the inaugural one was held there in 2002.

In an interview Dawn Wilson and I had the pleasure of doing with Angie Fenton in the Louisville Courier-Journal back in 2006, Albert Mohler. the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was quoted as saying  "Only God has the right to determine gender."  He then added "any attempt to alter that creation is an act of rebellion against God."

So yeah, they've been hatin' on transpeople for a long time, and now they are taking it to another level. 

A proposal by Denny Burk, an influential SBC member and an associate professor of Biblical studies at the Southern Baptist Seminary's Boyce College, would commit the SBC to openly lobby against all laws protecting trans people and commit them to fighting the trans human rights movement.  .

Guess the SBC didn't learn a thing about being loud and wrong in their support of slavery, segregation,  fighting the African-American civil rights movement in the 50's and 60's and the LGB one.

The Southern Baptist Church obviously isn't aware of intersex people, the increasing mountains of evidence that transsexuality is a medical issue, the fact there have been some interesting mutations pop up at times, there are more human chromosome combinations beyond XX and XY, and gender identity is more complex than the simplistic binary way they wish to believe it is. 

And transphobic bigotry wrapped in selected scriptures is still transphobic bigotry.
 

This SBC trans hate resolution would potentially be voted on at their upcoming convention in Baltimore on June 10-11.  It is ironically the same week that just a short drive up I-95 the trans community will be gathering in Philadelphia June 12-14 for the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, the largest transgender convention in the United States.     

If the Southern Baptists do vote to continue their denomination's legacy of hate and being on the wrong side of human rights struggles, we in the trans community would have no choice but to strike back in the culture war we didn't start for our humanity and human rights.

'Rebellion against God' my azz.  It's more like we transpeople are standing up against white privilege laden conservafools and bigots who wish to continue twisting scripture for their own political purposes and agenda.  

And far from attracting new people to attend your SBC affiliated churches, which have had a sustained two decade long fall in membership, you'd drive even more people away with this anti-trans stance. 

Another Tuesday, Another HERO Fight

Today may be the first Tuesday in June, but what this day actually is turning out to be is the first battle of the fight to keep our just passed Houston Equal Rights Ordinance from being rolled back by the faith-based bigots.   

It's the first Tuesday City Council comment session since the ordinance passed and went into effect on May 28.

Many of us on Team HERO had planned to go to City Council, thank Mayor Parker and the 10 council members who voted in favor of expanding rights for all Houstonians. But it looks like our haters also targeted this June 3 council meeting to express their HERO hatred.   They were frustrated that Team HERO dominated the chambers and the speaker counts 447-98.  Pro-HERO ministers outnumbered the anti-HERO hater ministers by a 2-1 margin and most importantly, we dominated the media optics during the HERO passage fight.  

Note to the HERO haters.  The city is still standing.  The Houston skies did not see fire and brimstone descend upon it.  The mayor and the ten council members who voted for passage didn't turn into pillars of salt.   The sun has continued to rise in the east and set in the west.  No Houston baker has been forced to bake a swastika cake against their will   Transpeople are using the bathrooms according to their outward gender presentation without incident. 

None of your parade of horribles has happened short of y'all showing your nekulturny asses and issuing death threats to Mayor Parker. 

And you faith based bigots are STILL on the wrong side of history.  You lied, you lost 11-6 and you need to get over it.  Houston is a much better city because that ordinance is on the books.  Your reprehensible behavior is our best evidence why the HERO needed to pass..

Discrimination's time has expired in my hometown, and I'm going to fight with every fiber of my being alongside Team HERO to keep it that way.  

So once again, if you can show up and show out and join me, Amelia, Dee Dee and Team HERO in Houston City Council chambers, I ask that you get there no later than noon CDT for the public comment session that will start at 1:30 PM

Remember, decline to sign for the next 30 days ANY petition that is thrust upon you for your signature.   The anti-HERO peeps need to collect  25,000 signatures to force a referendum.   

And yes peeps, for those of you not inside Beltway 8 or who can't make it, you can watch the proceedings once again by clicking on this link.


TransGriot Update: Turn out the spike in speakers was over a proposed transportation ordinance debating eideshare companies Uber and Lyft's entry into the Houston market.  No haters at City Hall, but members were surprised that members of our community would come to thank them for passing an ordinance. 

 

Another Reason Why We Need A HERO In Houston

This is an example of some of the jaw dropping ignorance I and our HERO passage team have had to deal with and endure over the last several weeks.  

Here's video of one of the faith-based hate ministers, Pastor Becky Riggle trying to argue that she and KKKristians like her have a right to discriminate against gays and Jews.

Her ignorance was so mind boggling I initially forgot to write her name down.   Her hubby Steve, who is the senior pastor of Grace Community Church tried and failed just as miserably to defend the indefensible.

 

Damn, Y'all Starting The 'War On The Girl Scouts' Again?

The conservative movement 'War On Women' for the last few years has also included because of their progressive outlook, attacking the Girl Scouts.

The fundies have foaming at the mouth hatred for Girl Scouts of the USA because it not only didn't get taken over by the wingers like they did the Boy Scouts, GSUSA has stated on its website the organization “does not have a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood,” and that it will remain a “secular organization” that will not take a position on human sexuality, birth control, abortion.

The faith-based haters not only have stopped organizing and supporting Girl Scout troops, in some cases they are denying them meeting spaces.  They have even gone as far as organizing their own conservative alternative organization called the AmeriKKKan American Heritage Girls.

They have also over the last few years attacked the Girl Scout cookie drives which are one of the funding streams for the organization. 

Thanks to longtime reader Jazmine for bringing to my attention another 'War On The Girl Scouts' attack to shine a bright spotlight on. 

This latest violation of the Ten Commandments comes from right wing pastor Kevin Swanson.   He urged his Generations Radio show listeners not to buy Girl Scout cookies because 'the organization promotes lesbianism' 

“I’d say you ought to say no to the Girl Scout cookies,” Swanson told listeners. “I don’t want to support lesbianism, I don’t want to support Planned Parenthood and I don’t want to support abortion, and if that be the case I’m not buying Girl Scout cookies.”

And if that fear and smear line wasn't enough to stir up the sheeple, Swanson called the Girl Scouts of the USA  ”a wicked organization,” that doesn’t promote “godly womanhood.”

He also attacked my mayor and threw the c-word in there:  Communist. 

And oh yeah, the commandment Pharisee Swanson violated was 'thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.'

Yeah, it's time to rebuke this fool in the name of Jesus by tripling your orders of Girl Scout cookies when the GSUSA cookie drives start in your area.

And yeah, he's earned a Shut Up Fool award nomination for this one.

Faith-Based Bigots Still Trying (And Failing) To Come Up With An Anti-Trans Doctrine

Since they are losing the marriage equality war, the faith based bigot are now trying to pivot and focus their time an efforts on attacking transpeople. 

However, they have one major problem when it comes to trying to use the Bible as a weapon against us.  They don't have a handy go to scripture to bash us with like they do with Deuteronomy 22:2 to bash gay and lesbian people.  

So what the conservafools have tried to do is create one.   You'll note that when they trot out these anti-trans talking points they will not quote any Biblical scripture to back them up because frankly much of what the Bible has to say on our issues is in large part trans friendly.

One of their current ones in addition to their standard 'God doesn't make mistakes' and  variation of it is this faith-based bigoted assertion that transpeople are 'rebelling against God' when you alter your body or undergo a gender transition.

Matthew 19:12 and Jesus himself blows that lie up

For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. [KJV]


On top of that, Pat Robertson has inadvertently undercut their intended message and efforts to pimp the transsexuality is 'rebelling against God' lie by saying on multiple occasions that transsexuality is not a sin. 

So yeah, it's almost too easy for us to feed our opponents misguided words back to them.  I can easily point out that anyone who has had a tummy tuck, breast augmentation, pierced their ears or other body parts is also 'altering their body' and by their hypocritical conservastandard is 'rebelling against God.. 

And yeah, guess they forgot about Exodus 20:16 in the process of coming up with this crap.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

But back to discussing their faith based crap.  

They have tried and failed twice in terms of using the Good Book as an attack weapon against much needed human rights laws, and it's up to the trans community and our allies to make sure that the faith based bigots spectacularly fail once again.   

More Journalism Breaking Out At CNN?

One of the things that has pissed me off about the 'mainsteam media' (CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN) over the last decade is they routinely invite these right wing hatemongers on their networks for interviews, let them Etch-a-Sketch themselves as 'moderates' and never call them on the hateful crap they always say when they are in conservaworld.

CNN's Carol Costello had one of those moments of journalism when she simply read some of AFA hatemonger Bryan Fischer's words back to him and eventually cut off the interview when Fischer started going into incoherent rant mode. 



And he's gone batturd crazy because she did.  Fischer called her a 'member of the Gay Gestapo' simply for doing her job.  

Soledad O'Brien has been calling out the liars and conservaignorance lately and I guess the rest of her CNN colleagues are starting to follow suit.

About damned time.

Bigotry Wrapped In Prayer Is Still Bigotry

This picture says it all doesn't it?  

Bigotry wrapped in prayer is still bigotry no matter how much you.try to wrap in in the flag, come up with specious 'love the sinner but hate the sin' spin lines that don't appear as a single scripture anywhere in the Bible, or try to come up with some jacked up 'Hate Thy Neighbor' conservadoctrine to mask your power grab.

While you're saying prayers to get 2012 off to a spiritually cleansing good start, why don't you faith-based transphobes and homophobes say some prayers asking God to forgive you for bearing false witness against your fellow human beings in the 2K11?

Ponder that on your way to Sunday services this morning, faith-based haters

Oh yeah, have a blessed day and a blessed new year.. 

San Antonio Media-Why Haven't You Interviewed The Transwoman In This Macy's Story?

One of the things that is bothering me in this developing story of faith based discrimination is that we've only heard one side of it. 

While transperson Lauryn Farris has been interviewed, the one that definitely needs to be heard is the person whose rights were violated.

Why the cricket chirping silence on this?   Why hasn't the San Antonio media done some old fashioned shoe leather reporting to find that transperson and get their side of the story?

Or is this a situation that the right wingers set up in order to force a court case testing their stank 'religious liberty' doctrine?

Wouldn't be the first time they sent fake trans people into a place in order to make a situation fit their false memes they pimp on the regular.

Remember in the middle of the battle to pass (and defend) a trans rights law in Montgomery County, Maryland, the anti trans opposition to that law sent an obviously dressed man in drag into the locker room of a Gaithersburg, MD health club, and then admitted they did it. 

So as the days pass and we still don't have an appearance from the transperson whose rights were violated, I keep having the same uneasy feeling that this may have been instigated by the Reichers..

So San Antonio media, get on your job.  Either find the transperson who had their human rights violated and interview them, or do the investigative reporting to find out if Natalie Johnson is part of a conservaplot to set up a 'religious liberty' court case.

Natalie Johnson, Your Religious Beliefs Don't Trump My Human Rights

You know I'm following the case happening two hours west of me on I-10 in San Antonio in which a transphobic now former Macy's employee denied access to a fitting room in their Rivercenter store to a transwoman.   As of yet the transwoman in question hasn't been interviewed to get her side of the story.

Here's what Natalie Johnson had to say for herself when she was interviewed on KENS-TV.




And now it's the TransGriot's turn to blast back.

Natalie, the only 'mentally confused' person here is you.   Don't know if you're familiar with the Texas and United States Constitutions and it's obvious from looking at your interview you aren't, but bottom line is your religious beliefs don't trump mine or anyone's human rights.

What pissed me off even more about this faith-based transphobia you aimed at one of my transsisters is that you share my ethnic heritage. 

You may not believe trans people exists, but an ever increasing body of scientific and medical evidence plus  decades of our documented lived experiences provide undeniable evidence that I and other transpeople around the world are walking this planet. 

The default setting for human life when a zygote starts developing into a fetus is female.  A little more testosterone in the womb and you would have come out of the birth canal 27 years ago.being named Nathaniel  If that testosterone burst was mistimed during the hormone wash you would know firsthand what it's like to be a transperson and face the discrimination and ignorance that you gleefully dished out in Macy's that day.

But back to excoriating your ludicrous assertion that your alleged Christian beliefs trump a transperson's civil and human rights and corporate policies that you treat everyone with respect and dignity.   

No, they don't and neither does your faith-based bigotry and transphobia.. 

"I made sure to keep a close eye out on him because he was shopping for women's clothing."

So?  And who died and deputized you sir as a stormtrooper for the Femininity Police?  Being misgendered doesn't feel good does it, Nathaniel?

Since you claim to be a Christian, how about you perusing Matthew 19:12  and Matthew 7:1?

Matthew 19:12  For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' 

 
And what does Matthew 7:1 say?    Judge not, lest ye be not judged..