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A very ugly battle is currently being waged in Houston against the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) that was passed under Mayor Annise Parker in May of 2014. Heading into a vote in November to undo it, fundamentalist Christians and all manner of social conservatives have been rallying voters with extraordinarily misleading ads like this.
These sort of vicious attack ads began appearing in California before Proposition 8 went to the ballot box. In fact, that are chillingly similar. They were just as distorted then as they are now and they are, unfortunately, very effective.
A lot of money has been pouring in to overturn HERO from some very unsavory sources. Last week Houston Texans owner Bob McNair donated $10,000 to the campaign, in direct opposition to the lip-service the NFL has given to be more inclusive of gay players and LGBT fans. Former football player Chris Kluwe did not cotton to it, not one little bit. Writing for Sport's Illustrated's The Cauldron, Kluwe served up a scalding open letter to McNair that needs to be read in its entirety. For now, here are a few juicy paragraphs to get you started.
It was with some puzzlement that I read the recent story about your donation to a political group opposing the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (“HERO”), a measure seeking to protect Houstonians from sexual orientation and gender identity-based discrimination.
“Surely,” I said to myself, “one of the NFL’s thirty-two owners, businessmen with more accumulated wealth than most third world nations and completely vested in the well-being of the society that afforded them such success … surely this man could not be a pants-on-head, cowhumping glue-huffer stupid enough to buy in on clearly outdated ideals of bigotry and intolerance?”
Sadly, however, it appears I must hide my livestock, because the facts do not lie. You have, indeed, donated $10,000 to a cause whose sole purpose is to denigrate a specific group of American citizens. Which begs the question — WHY?
You may not have heard, but the NFL has been working really hard to clean up its image with regards to LBGT issues; what with the whole Michael Sam draft fiasco, my experiences in Minnesota, and the fact that no player feels comfortable enough to come out as openly gay despite the league having over 1800 individuals at any given time.
Yet here you are, inexplicably spraying a whirlwind of fecal chunks all over the league’s PR efforts like an incontinent water buffalo after an ex-lax smoothie.
It seems to me — and this is just pure conjecture, a hypothetical, if you will — that your donating to an anti-equal rights group just miiiiiiiiight make people think twice about whether the NFL really means what it says on this issue. Like that time in Arizona, when the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (another attempt by some of history’s cockroaches masquerading as people to curtail the freedoms of others) got shot down because the NFL stepped in and said they weren’t okay with blatant discrimination in a state in which they operate.
I just love this man. Chris Kluwe has been an amazing ally to our community, even though being such an outspoken advocate
damaged his career. We all owe Chris a debt of gratitude for sticking up for equality and sticking it to neanderthals like Bob McNair.
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October 20, 2015
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