If you’re not following Houston attorney Kris Banks on Twitter, you missed a fascinating, firsthand account from the religious-right rally against the proposed Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) this evening (Sunday, May 18). The proposed HERO would bar discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on race, gender, religion, military status, sexual orientation, gender identity and a number of other protected characteristics. The anti-HERO rally was promoted by the right-wing Houston Area Pastor Council. Banks estimated that about 300 attended the event at Grace Community Church.
Many of the rally’s speakers appear to be the same ones who railed against the proposed ordinance before last week’s Houston City Council meeting. (Grace pastor Becky Riggle also spoke this evening, but it appears she didn’t repeat her claim that religious freedom should permit someone to discriminate against Jews as well as LGBT people. Her husband, Steve Riggle, also spoke. He’s the Riggle noted in one of the tweets below.)
Tonight’s rally seethed with hate and contempt for LGBT people. According to Banks’ tweets, speakers apparently decided that launching personal attacks on Mayor Annise Parker and ridiculing transgender people are the way to block passage of the HERO. A few of Banks’ tweets:
Dave Welch: Mayor Parker is a lesbian because she accepted a lie about herself and was disappointed with men #herohaters
— Kris Banks (@KrisBanks) May 19, 2014
Dave Welch points out that LGBT people are a minority. Why should they have rights? #herohaters — Kris Banks (@KrisBanks) May 19, 2014
People laughing about transgender people. Such nice folks, these people #herohaters
— Kris Banks (@KrisBanks) May 18, 2014
Riggle: Would mayor be willing to include Christians as a protected class? (They are. HERO covers religion) #herohaters — Kris Banks (@KrisBanks) May 19, 2014
Up on the big screens at the rally. Very classy #herohaters pic.twitter.com/WOWf74d4JO — Kris Banks (@KrisBanks) May 18, 2014
CM Kubosh says God put him on Council to fight this ordinance #herohaters — Kris Banks (@KrisBanks) May 18, 2014
CM Kubosh: “I don’t see this as a civil rights issue.” #herohaters — Kris Banks (@KrisBanks) May 18, 2014
You can follow Banks on Twitter here.
apparently this ugly rally is what they meant when they said delaying the vote on HERO would “bring the city together.” “provide healing.” lying pieces of trash, everyone of them. especially Kubosh & Stardig.
and stardig is no better. she keeps lying about HERO duplicating federal and state law. she knows better, she just doesn’t care that LGBT folks are not protected by either federal or state law. or apparently if her gay brother is discriminated against.
Yet another example of how religion poisons everything
That’s all they know how to do . . .
“CM Kubosh says God put him on Council to fight this ordinance”
Maybe TFN should request a copy of the memo from God just to verify the appointment?
It’s scary that people such as Dave Welch and Steve Riggle exist and are willing to promote their bigotry and lies in public. Texas K-12 education, whether public, private, or home-school, obviously failed them because it failed to socialize them and teach them critical thinking and moral values. In this country, even minorities have Constitutionally guaranteed rights, such as equal protection of the laws and to not have someone else’s religion pushed down their throats. True, the haters and bigots have the right to freedom of speech, but it is still scary that they are exercising it in this way.
“CM Kubosh says God put him on Council to fight this ordinance”
I say God made A. Parker Mayor to bring this ordinance.
seriously !?
Here are some shades of Emil Durkheim. I ran into an interesting article about why the Religious Right is REALLY against gay marriage.
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2010/12/13822/
I would add one other thing here that is relevant, and it too is about loss of POWER. The 1970s and 1980s Religious Right dream of taking over the government of the United States, using its power to rebuild the nation in the image of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Churches of America, and then use the power of government at all levels to force every man, woman, and child to adhere to what they advertise as their “right doctrine” is FAILING. It is not just FAILING. It is failing miserably, and the cumulative degree of that failure is reaching epic proportions. They know this because of how often they see themselves losing in just about every venue they try to influence or overtake. They are now losing big time on the gay marriage issue, an issue that one time looked to them like an easy “no brainer” because they thought everyone would reject gay people out of simple, visceral disgust—and allow them to plant a quick victory flag so their followers would not lose heart. Now, once again, where victory seemed certain, a humiliating national defeat is at their doorstep, and their litmus test for continued viability has been failed—not just failed—MAJOR FAILED.
The American people as a whole do not want what they are selling, and this should have been obvious to them from the start in the 1970s. And this is not about Jesus, not wanting Jesus, or rejecting Jesus. Plenty of people want Jesus.
The thing people are rejecting is the current-day CHURCH CULTURE of Christian fundamentalist America. Sensible people see it for what it really is—a worn out,late 19th century, purely American religious movement that has become the last refuge of ignorance, bigotry, hatred, and “country bumpkinism” in the United States. It is a cultural movement that regularly lies and cheats to fend off factual truth and runs from the most basic words of Jesus Christ in the New Testament like a rabbit runs from a pack of hounds.
I am here tonight to inform you that the big 1970s American POWER DREAM you people cooked up has failed and will continue to fail big time—not because the people are rejecting Jesus—but because people are rejecting YOU (completely apart from Jesus). People are rejecting the stupid, ignorant, unloving, unkind, backwoods, man-created, and bigoted church culture that is your unfortunate legacy since about 1900—and let me be clear—I am including conservative Southern Baptist church culture within that larger sorry culture. You decided to make your beds and whore yourself with that culture in 1979, and now you are going to have to lie in that bed as people flee your churches.
Think about it. These people do not even speak the same language as other people in American society and culture—and it is not a Jesus language—it’s a dumb-sounding, man-made language that you invented—and it uses the word “just” way too much. One of my favorite lines is “And I jist, jist, jist, well I jist, y’all know, I is been awalkin’ with Jesus and he is jist laid it on my heart that a whole bunch of special concerns is a risen among our peeple.”
If I were Jesus, I would smack every one of you across the face with a wet tuna for talking like that and embarrassing me with it on the world stage.
HOUSTON HERO. EPIC FAIL. YOU WAIT AND SEE. AND I JUST TOLD YOU WHY. AND IN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRIDE YOU WILL AGAIN BLIND YOURSELVES TO THE TRUTH AND TO THE RAGS THAT YOU ARE REALLY CLOTHED WITH IN THIS WORLD. MARK MY WORD.
Charles,
It has been my choice for quite some time to approach every situation with love. Your words are challenging to read and I see why you are being so cheeky. It is beautifully written.
Our relationship with God did seem to change from being in the garden with God, and God sending his son to earth to pay for our sins. Whether this is factual is inconsequential it is truly a beautiful story to consider. Myself, I believe there is so much to this that it is more than just a story. God, through his son Jesus Christ, commanded the pharoses to remember it is not their place to decide who will come to God, God needs no help with judgment. To make the point clear he threw around some tables that were in the market, in other words only God can be afforded righteous condemnation. When an agency actively rebukes someone for their sexual orientation or their gender identity, they have committed a sin. They may feel righteous with firing someone in the name of God. We have been told by Jesus not to judge others and to love everyone, even your enemies.
I am saddened when I experience someone using the bible as a weapon. The bible was not intended to be used in that manner. God’s spirit is by far greater that anything we can ever imagine, let alone written. God’s love is for absolutely everybody. Praise be to God.
Hi Emily. Although I disagree with these people, they have a right to believe what they believe and voice it. Personally, if they had the power, I feel almost certain that they would close down my church and do Roman-style persecution of the members of my church.
It would not be my place to close down their churches or persecute them because God has not assigned me that job. I simply disagree with them, and I am willing to let them know in plain language just how much I disagree with them.
Here is the crux of the problem. Christian fundamentalism is by its very nature militant. The founders of their movement, late in the 19th century, even used the word “militant” to describe themselves. In other words, they view themselves as being at WAR with everything and everyone that does not believe exactly as they do. They think they are in a state of warfare for God and the Bible. They are in fact in a state of war for themselves and the man-made culture of their churches. Unlike you and me, they believe that they have a God-given right to FORCE what they believe onto other people—whether those other people like it or not. Every day that passes by, they have a spider web of national schemes, plans, and strategies to take over the earthly power of government, which Jesus rejected when Satan offered it to him, and use that power to force what they believe into the lives of every American. For several decades after the 1970s, Christians who are not of their “ilk” kept silent about their activities and refused to confront their evil schemes in the interests of “Christian brotherhood.”
There is an old but true saying that evil abounds because good men keep silent and do nothing. This is what happened, good Christian men and women stood silent and did nothing—and it allowed fundie militancy to become stronger with each passing decade and jump into taking over government.
The tide is changing now. Good men and women in the so-called “apostate” churches have awakened. They are putting aside their silence and taking action to stop and push back this militant 19th century evil. I am just one of a large number of people who are willing to fight back. We will be joined soon by many, many, many more as time passes. The wave we have created is already foiling them at every turn. That mere wave will soon become a 1,000-foot-high tidal wave that will flood their fires and lay waste to all of their plans and schemes from sea to shining sea.
Because they are small in number, it was easy for them to hate and discredit atheists and agnostics, who often understand and actually share and implement the values of Jesus in their own lives far better than they do. The fundie militants fear, hate, and despise people like me because we too bear the stamp CHRISTIAN, know the scriptures, and know the failings of these militants and can apply scripture to them. Unlike the atheists and agnostics, when we who love Jesus talk about this militancy and the dangers of it—Christian people and other people listen, understand, and push back. Here is how we feel about their militant hatred for us:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmR9b56GOac
Finally, just for you, here is the real danger in their continued militancy and what we are fighting to prevent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f0ZHaoSnf0
Oh my Charles I simply love how you write. I really, really enjoyed the video, it is rare to meet a kindred spirit. 🙂
It is my hope that even people who disagree will not take joy in laying to waste the hopes and ambitions of our adversaries, it is my hope that with obvious love, kindness, and understanding that we can create a better world with greater compassion and charity. God Bless you. 🙂
It must be difficult to accept that their target of “evil in human form”( LGBT et al)is being granted a modicum of protection from the bigotry of the Religious Right. And SS weddings too? That’s just the last straw! Where is the power to discriminate, to put those people in their place? Advice: You Still are entitled to your biases; everyone has some, but you’re not free to inflict them on others just because you think the godly majority rules. Not this time.