Search results for Jonathan Saenz

This is hardly a coincidence. The State Affairs Committee of the Texas Senate has scheduled a public hearing for Senate Bill 6, the transgender discrimination bill, on the same day that a parade of prominent anti-LGBT speakers will join Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton at a so-called "Pastors' Briefing" at the Texas Capitol. Read More

We continue our review of the outrageous and offensive things we heard from the right in 2016. Today let's look at the continuing right-wing freak-out over extending equal rights to LGBT people, including the freedom to marry, to be not face discrimination, and even to use public restrooms. You can check out previous posts from the Year in Quotes here.…… Read More

Religious Right Watch: Far-Right Organizations in Texas

Following are some of the most prominent far-right organizations in Texas. Data comes from tax records (Form 990) nonprofit organizations file with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Management Neal Frey, president

Board Neal Frey, president Judith Frey, secretary Rebecca Rosenberger, director Richard Gibson, director Noah Frey, director

Educational Research Analysts 501(c)(3) nonprofit EIN: 75-1407723… Read More

Today we begin our traditional review of the most offensive, ridiculous and otherwise outrageous quotes we heard from the right over the past 12 months. Demonizing and promoting discrimination against LGBT people is one of the overriding obsessions of the right in America today. That was even more true this year, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples to marry and local and state governments debated whether to protect LGBT people from discrimination. Here’s some of what we heard from the right about LGBT people this year. We have so many quotes on this that we’ll have to follow up with a Part II posting. (Click here for posts on what we heard from the right in previous years.)

“The Bible says if you engage in homosexuality, your body will do things that will penalize you. So if you can have a vaccine for AIDS, then you’re keeping your body from penalizing you. I don’t think they’ll ever find a vaccine for AIDS.”

– Religious-right propagandist David Barton, arguing that God doesn’t want a vaccine for AIDS.

“Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and… Read More

Faith leaders teach that lying is a sin. So why do religious-righters distort the truth so shamelessly in pushing their extreme political agenda? You can see at least two big examples in Texas right now.

One of the biggest falsehoods religious-right groups are pushing right now is the claim that Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood to help exterminate the African-American population through abortion and other methods. Today the right-wing Texas Pastor Council, a political front group run by odious hate-monger Dave Welch, tweeted a partial quote from Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger:

“We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”

We won’t help spread this nonsense by posting the full tweet here, but you can see it at the link above. The tweet includes a photograph and a phone number activists can call to demand that the Smithsonian Institution remove a bust of Sanger.

But wait. Did Sanger want to exterminate African Americans? Of course not. And PolitiFact has already debunked that claim as a ridiculous lie. It did so more than four years ago when checking a similar claim from Herman Cain, then a Republican presidential candidate. Cain had claimed that Planned Parenthood was guilty of genocide for planning to “kill… Read More