Breaking: TX Supreme Court Orders Houston To Repeal Or Place On Ballot LGBT Nondiscrimination Law

Despite a group of anti-gay religious activists failure to produce enough signatures to place a nondiscrimination law on the ballot, the Texas Supreme Court has just ordered the ordinance to be repealed or put up for a vote.

The Texas Supreme Court has just ordered the City of Houston to either repeal its nondiscrimination ordinance or place it on the November ballot.

Houston’s ordinance, dubbed HERO, for Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, has been highly controversial in the state’s largest city of 2.3 million people, despite it having been the only major city in America without one. It passed in May of 2014. 

Mayor Annise Parker was forced to work extraordinary hard to ensure its passage, in large part because the religious right both locally and nationally waged war against the ordinance both before its passage and after. They also made her the target of their anger, which was convenient for them as Parker is a married lesbian raising children with her wife.

Parker signed it into law in August of 2014 but placed it on hold pending legal challenges that were believed to have been won.

The Texas Supreme Court just handed down a ruling that points to a conflict between the City Attorney, who found thousands of signatures on a petition to place the ordinance on the ballot, and the City Secretary, who ruled petitioners had enough signatures to force a ballot referendum.

The City Council followed the advice of the City Attorney, not the City Secretary, and today the Supreme Court ruled the City Council “had no discretion but to repeal the ordinance or proceed with the election process.”

“If the City Council believed the City Secretary abused her discretion in certifying the petition or otherwise erred in her duties, it was nevertheless obligated to fulfill its duties under the Charter and thereafter seek any affirmative relief to which it might be entitled. But the City Council did not do so. Instead, it refused to fulfill its ministerial duty, forcing the petition organizers to file suit.”

A vociferously anti-gay group of Houston pastors, including one in particular who has waged a religious war against Mayor Parker, were involved in the petition process to place the HERO on the ballot.

 

Image by Ed Schipul via Flickr and a CC license