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Anti-Gay Donor Quietly Bankrolling Campaign To Repeal Equal Rights Ordinance Spends Up To $350,000

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Longtime activist has compared gays to murderers, same-sex marriage to Holocaust

The largest individual donor to the campaign to repeal Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance has compared gays to murderers and same-sex marriage to the Holocaust. 

Longtime anti-gay activist Dr. Steve Hotze, who’s kicked in up to $350,000 for the anti-HERO campaign, has also said same-sex marriage will lead to teachers encouraging kindergarteners to try anal sex. And he recently wielded a sword on stage at an anti-gay rally, while pledging to drive “homofascists” out of Houston and back to San Francisco. 

However, despite his key financial role, the anti-HERO campaign has kept Hotze muzzled, silencing his rabidly anti-gay views while it maintains a laser focus on the more politically advantageous transgender bathroom myth. 

“If they see he is connected to this, it may be that it turns off certain voters that may know his position on this is extreme,” University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus told The Houston Chronicle. 

According to the Chronicle, Hotze has loaned the anti-HERO campaign $50,000 and bought $96,225 in radio ads. He is also believed to have made another $200,350 in credit card expenditures to purchase radio ads.

Hotze’s contributions suggest the anti-HERO campaign, despite a barrage of anti-trans ads, is as much about opposition to gay rights as anything. 

Thirty years ago, Hotze sponsored the infamous “Straight Slate,” a group of anti-gay Houston City Council candidates led by mayoral hopeful Louie Welch, who said over a hot mic before a televised debate that the best way to combat AIDS would be to “shoot the queers.” And the Straight Slate has been reincarnated this year, in the form of several City Council candidates running based on opposition to HERO. 

But with gay acceptance growing, the anti-HERO campaign has chosen instead to single out transgender people, masking Hotze-style homophobia behind the fear-mongering lie that sexual predators will use the ordinance to enter women’s restrooms and prey on children. 

“Most Houstonians, like most Americans, have gay and lesbian friends,” Richard Carlbom, manager of the pro-HERO campaign, told the Chronicle. “Most people don’t know a transgender person that they know of. The lack of familiarity means it can be easy for people to have questions or concerns or be made to be afraid, and that’s exactly what the other side does.”

HERO, which will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot, would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and 13 other characteristics in employment, housing and public accommodations. The HERO ballot fight, which caps an 18-month legal battle since the council first approved the ordinance in May 2014, has become a national and international story in the mainstream media, with both the Associated Press and The Guardian publishing stories over the weekend. 

The AP noted that nondiscrimination laws have replaced marriage equality as the No. 1 priority for many LGBT groups. Texas is one of 28 states with no LGBT protections, and Houston is the largest city in the country without a nondiscrimination ordinance. 

“The vote in Houston will carry national significance,” Human Rights Campaign legal director Sarah Warbelow told the AP. 

Watch the latest ad from the coalition supporting HERO, Houston Unites, below. 

 

EARLIER:

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Gay Marriage Will Lead To Teachers Encouraging 5 Year Olds ‘To Participate In Anal Sex’ Warns Doctor

 

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BAD PRESIDENT

Trump Faces Furious State Dept. Revolt for Trashing Career Diplomats on Ukraine: ‘People Are Fed Up’

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October 20, 2019

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According to a report from Politico, Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are facing a massive revolt by longtime staffers at the State Department for continuing to trash U.S. diplomats and members in the foreign service community who refuse to protect the president over his Ukraine misdeeds.

Politico notes, “They’ve been derided as a ‘Deep State,’ slurred as ‘Obama holdovers,’ threatened with draconian budget cuts and told that President Donald Trump doesn’t even need them. Now, America’s diplomats are taking their revenge.”

Describing diplomats and State Department officials who have already spoken with House investigators, Politico reveals that resentment toward the president runs deeper than just anger over his Ukraine troubles.

“Overall, the diplomats’ testimony has bolstered allegations that Trump tried to improperly pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival,” the report states. “But some also used the platform to air long-held grievances over Trump and his aides’ treatment of the State Department’s career staffers, several of whom were demoted or sidelined following attacks by the conservative media.”

According to Laura Kennedy, a former U.S. ambassador who still keeps in touch with former associates at State, “People are fed up, there’s a deep well of resentment that’s just bubbled toward the top.”

According to another source, some lower-level employees are worried their reputations may be sullied by the turmoil going on in Pompeo’s department.

In fact, Pompeo has infuriated the career diplomats with how he is running the department as well as his criticism of well-respected employees.

“State Department employees say they’re furious that he hasn’t publicly supported [former Ukraine Ambassador Marie] Yovanovitch, who testified that the deputy secretary of state, John Sullivan, admitted to her that she’d ‘done nothing wrong’ but was being recalled anyway,” Politico reports. “Pompeo took over the department in April 2018, after morale had sunk unusually low under Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. Tillerson had largely sidelined career diplomats and seemed willing to go along with steep budget cuts Trump proposed for the State Department – cuts Congress has repeatedly blocked.”

According to a U.S. diplomat stationed overseas, “People are generally disappointed that Pompeo seems to have abdicated principled leadership in favor of political games.”

“But for now, as the impeachment inquiry leads their colleagues to Capitol Hill, State Department staffers feel like they matter, too. ‘They are sad, tired and scared,’ one former State Department official said, ‘though glad to see colleagues stand up and fulfill their oaths.’” Politico summed up.

You can read more here.

 

Image by U.S. Department of State via Flickr

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IT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Trump Reverses on Illegal Hosting of G-7 at His Own Resort – Blames ‘Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility’

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October 19, 2019

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President Donald Trump late Saturday night finally reversed his decision to host the G-7 at his Doral Miami resort in June of 2020. Ignoring numerous Republican lawmakers, legal experts, and bipartisan condemnation of his unconstitutional and illegal decision the president instead blamed the “Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility.”

Curiously, Trump announced his administration would “begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately.”

But on Thursday Trump’s chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters at a rare White House briefing that the administration had conducted an exhaustive search for the best space to host the G-7 leaders, and fairly decided Trump’s Doral Miami resort was “perfect.”

Earlier: Trump Mocked After Saying He Thought Violating the Constitution and Profiting From G7 Hosting Was ‘Good for Our Country’

Mulvaney went so far as to claim the White House had looked at 12 locations, including two in Utah, but decided on the Doral.

He also preemptively refused to release any emails or other items documenting the search process.

But if an actual search had been conducted, it would make sense to simply announce the 2020 G-7 would be held at the next “best” locale. Instead, Trump announced a new search would be conducted.

Why?

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READ THE CONSTITUTION

Trump Mocked After Saying He Thought Violating the Constitution and Profiting From G7 Hosting Was ‘Good for Our Country’

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1 day ago

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October 19, 2019

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‘Bro Tweeted Out an Ad’

After tremendous public and private  bipartisan condemnation of his decision to host the 2020 G-7 at his own Miami resort President Donald Trump Saturday night appeared to be laying the groundwork of reversing the unconstitutional and illegal decision.

In an insane series of tweets the president did what he always does: blamed the media for holding his feet to the fire in accurately reporting the consequences of his actions.

“I thought I was doing something very good for our Country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 Leaders. It is big, grand, on hundreds of acres, next to MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, has tremendous ballrooms & meeting rooms,” Trump tweeted, adding that “each delegation would have its own 50 to 70 unit building. Would set up better than other alternatives. I announced that I would be willing to do it at NO PROFIT or, if legally permissible, at ZERO COST to the USA. But, as usual, the Hostile Media & their Democrat Partners went CRAZY!”

Also going “crazy” are Republicans and legal experts.

Should Trump host the G-7 at any of his properties he would reportedly be violating at least one if not several laws, and the U.S. Constitution.

Many quickly took to Twitter to express their condemnation yet again.

 

 

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