A play about the long and ultimately successful efforts to pass a hate crimes bill in Texas is premiering this weekend in Austin. The play, Just Outside Redemption by Dennis Bailey, was inspired by the work of Dianne Hardy-Garcia, the executive director of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas (now Equality Texas) in the 1990s […]
hate crimes
The Year in Quotes: Targeting Gay People
The religious right’s relentless demonization of gay and lesbian Americans got only worse in 2009. More quotes from the past year: “We believe to have ‘fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness’ for the sake of political expediency, or any other reason for that matter, is to offend a holy God, from whom the blessings […]
Threatening ‘Everything You Hold Dear!’
That got your attention, didn’t it? That’s what one far-right group in Texas was counting on today when it sent out a hair-on-fire fundraising e-mail with that subject line. We wanted to give you a taste of how far-right extremists are trying to frighten and shake down folks for money these days. From the e-mail: […]
E-Mail Watch: Hate Crimes and Bestiality
Texas has an abundance of religious-righters who send countless e-mails circulating throughout the internets. We don’t want to give specific ranters publicity by identifying them, but we will occasionally post examples of their nonsense to show the kind of extremism that passes for discourse on the far right. Today we note an e-mail attacking proposed […]
The Religious Right, Lies and Hate Crimes
The religious right’s campaign against a stronger federal law on hate crimes has increasingly been, well, hateful. An e-mail blast from one Texas-based pressure group this morning calls on recipients to express “opposition to the pending hate crimes legislation, also known as the “Pedophile Protection Act” due to its inclusion of pedophiles as a protected […]