UPDATE: The Houston City Council today delayed a final vote on the proposed Equal Rights Ordinance for two weeks. We’ll keep you updated on news about the ordinance and how you can take action in support.
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At some point, you have to wonder whether the supposedly God-fearing activists on the religious right are capable of telling the truth about even basic things.
The most common and disgusting attack on Houston’s proposed Equal Rights Ordinance is the absurd claim that it will allow sexual predators into public restrooms. Now the Houston Area Pastor Council is also distorting the facts about Tuesday’s events surrounding the debate over the proposed ordinance.
Today the group sent out a press release that inaccurately claims “1,500 pastors, citizens and elected officials” rallied at City Hall against the proposed ordinance. That’s more than a little exaggeration. The crowd looked less than a third that size to us. In fact, the Houston Chronicle pegged it at around 300.
The same press release also suggested that Houston pastors were “united” in opposition. Not true. In fact, about 70 religious leaders from across Houston have signed on to an open letter sent to City Council on Tuesday supporting the ordinance. The letter states in part:
We come from many religious traditions and hold different texts and observances as sacred, yet we share a commitment to the dignity of every human being, which requires treating each member of our community fairly, equally and with respect. The Equal Rights Ordinance seeks to extend these values to all the citizens of the city without imposing one set of religious beliefs over those of others.
You can read the clergy letter and the names of signers here.
Religious-right organizers of Tuesday’s opposition event at Houston City Hall also insisted that they don’t support discrimination — but they kept attacking LGBT people as immoral and a threat to families. And the signs protesters carried clearly demonstrated that the voices of hate were out in force. So were the voices of the confused. Do they even know what a “metrosexual” is?
The City Council is considering the proposed ordinance today. It would protect individuals from discrimination based on sex, race, color ethnicity, national original, age, familiar status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity or pregnancy. The measure prohibits discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations.
The religious maniacs in San Antonio bellowed the same irrational concerns about restrooms during the NDO proceedings in San Antonio last year. After NDO passage, those maniacs collected signatures to recall SA’s mayor and the pro-voting councilpeople using that same “men in dresses exposing their penises to our daughters” in public restrooms hysteria. SA citizens didn’t fall for it, though, and the recall efforts failed. BTW, the biggest harm to society that “metrosexuals” do in restrooms is waste water styling their hair. 🙂
LOL! Excessive Bryllcream use!
It makes me sad to see so-called “Christians” resorting to lies and distortions of reality (deceit) to get what they want.
1) The worst lie and form of deceit is the notion that they love the homosexual sinner but not the sin. I would question whether these people are capable of making such a mental separation because most of the people I have ever known hate the sinner AND his sin. That pretty clearly seems to be the case in Houston because the conservative groups in Houston are fighting for the right to maintain an environment that will allow them to hurt homosexuals because of their sins through social sanctions and other measures. Denying medical care to someone who badly needs it, because they are a sinner, is not loving the sinner. It is hating the sinner—plain and simple.
2) I am sure the Pastoral Haters of Houston can trot out some Bible verses in support of their position—but they also need to counterbalance those with these:
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8)
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy (James 5:11)
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:12)
I wonder how many of the Pastoral Haters of Houston would enjoy someone intervening in their lives by refusing to hire him for a job because their hearts are jealous, envious, or angry? And how about simply being “lacking in love,” which it seems to me is an almost universal characteristic of Christian fundamentalists on a rampage.
One of these days, some fundie is going to ask me: “What is your honest opinion as to why we conservative Christians lose on just about every public policy issue we take up.”
A) They would say it is “…because we are righteous and sin will evermore abound in the world until the final day.”
B) I would say it is “…because you have abandoned Jesus Christ in your hearts (having given him only lip service)and made a graven image out of the Bible. The Holy Spirit is disgusted with you because of this, and He has walked out on you—leaving your house desolate—just like He did the Jews in 72 A.D. This means that any line you draw in the sand will be inevitably drawn in the wrong place—just as you did with slavery in 1861 and as you have continued to do on a wide range of issues since that time. That fact that you win nothing is prima facie evidence of your desolation.”