Sometimes it's easy to forget Houston used to be a Jim Crow bigoted city in a Jim Crow bigoted state. Today, the city is immensely diverse. It is in fact a global melting pot. In addition to our overseas and across the southern and northern border neighbors who live and work here for professional reasons, Houston also proudly hosts refugees from war torn countries. The city is infused with Christian churches, mega churches, Jewish synagogues, Mosques, Hindu and Buddhist Temples among other kinds of places of worship. Most of us respect one another's belief systems. At least 145 different languages are spoken at homes in Houston.
When adversity strikes, as in the case of Hurricane Ike or Tropical Storm Allison, neighbors reach out to help one another. When Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, Houston opened its arms to its victims. Some residents never did go back to New Orleans because Houston turned out to be an ideal place for them and their families. I've always known Houston to be a city of mostly fine and very generous people.
That said, the evil of Jim Crow and bigotry has always lurked under the friendly surfaces. And it recently reared its very ugly head when the Texas GOP passed one of the most harsh voter ID laws in the U.S. Federal judges have ruled the law unconstitutional. One called it a poll tax. But the hateful law is still in the courts so the Jim Crow voter ID law is still in place. Over 600,000 registered voters were disenfranchised in 2014 because they did not have the proper ID.
Though voter disenfranchisement is a subject for an altogether different diary, voter suppression efforts prove that Jim Crow and its attendant bigotry never really died in Texas or in the South. And the old tricks of blatant lies, shrouded by gut level fear mongering and hatred for the other, seem sto work like charms, even today in a diverse and mostly tolerant city. Unfortunately on Tuesday, November 3 tolerance lost. Hatred won.
The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) went down in flames on Tuesday's municipal election. Supporters like me were stunned. Many of us thought it would pass, though narrowly. This ordinance protected at least fifteen groups from discrimination.
In Houston, Hate Trumped Fairness
The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO, which the City Council passed 18 months ago, established sensible protections from discrimination for 15 classes of people. It would have given people with disabilities, like Mr. Abbott, a paraplegic, a mechanism to fight employment or housing discrimination. It would have given veterans, pregnant women and senior citizens a valuable layer of protection and prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion and national origin. But it was its inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity that turned a sensible initiative into a nasty national controversy.
As the New York Times mentioned Houston's City Council passed HERO 18 months ago. Opponents, especially tea party Republican social and religious conservatives, fought it tooth and nail. This group took issue with the GLBT community and use of public restrooms. It ignored everything else the ordinance included and obsessed about potential perverts preying upon innocent women in public restrooms.
When City Council passed HERO the group of good ol' boys and bigots led by former Harris Co. Republican Chair Jared Woodfill sued the city of Houston. The Texas Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Houston must repeal the Equal Rights Ordinance or put it on November's ballot.
And this is when the smear campaign and gutter politics kicked into high gear. Woodfill's group hired a Republican operative who created an absolutely shameless and disgusting ad. The ad's scary voice cautioned voters to vote no on Houston's "bathroom ordinance." A menacing man entered a public women's restroom in which an innocent little girl walked toward a stall. The man followed her in.
The Republican ad man's response to the ad's veracity?
"It always feels great to win," said Jeff Norwood, a longtime Republican political consultant based in Austin.
The travesty of a blatant lie is one of his very favorites. Republicans can't seem to let go of scorched earth politics. Perhaps b/c the Party of, for and by the 1% has little else to offer to average voters.
Opponents of the law, led by Jared Woodfill, a Houston lawyer and a Texas Republican Party leader, started a well-funded campaign that equated supporting it with allowing men to use women’s public restrooms for deviant purposes. Their fearmongering, blasted on yard signs, bellowed from church pulpits and dramatized in a television ad, suggested that sexual deviants were waiting for the ordinance to kick in to sneak up on unsuspecting women in bathroom stalls.
In addition to the good ol' boys and city's known bigots' efforts to kill HERO, ministers at Christian fundamentalist and conservative African American churches joined forces with the opponents. Preachers railed against public bathroom perverts from their pulpits.
I am talking to you Ed Young the head minister of Houston's Second Baptist Church. Dr. Young also engaged in politicking and fear mongering when he evoked Fox News cable TV host as a credible source of information on #BlackLivesMattter. The prominent church minister and the appointed Harris Co. Sheriff (R) blamed the ruthless shooting of an area police officer as an evil product of #BlackLivesMatter.
The area conservative Christian church ministers opposition to HERO was a very bad turn of events for the ordinance. I knew there would be some trouble because many members of the Harris Co. Democratic Party's base are African American and Latino. I volunteer at the county's party every week. While answering the phones I spoke to more than a few irate members about HERO. One member lectured me about "a man putting on a dress to attack little girls in locker rooms and restrooms." No amount of reasoning could convince this woman otherwise. The dirty ad and railings from the pulpit worked like a charm. Another member read bible verses to me over the phone. He ranted about the evils of homosexuality.
Things took a turn for the worst when Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, tea party darling joined in the fray. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick stood on his tea party soapbox and played the fear card as hard as he could.
The hateful rhetoric of leaders like Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is the latest, ugliest example. Mr. Patrick was ebullient on Tuesday night after it became clear that Houston voters had decidedly rejected a broad equal rights ordinance that opponents maliciously and misleadingly characterized as a boon for cross-dressing sex offenders.
Greg Abbott tweeted voting against Proposition 1 (HERO), for discrimination is a Texas
value.
Of course after a crushing defeat such as this, there is always an abundance of finger pointing. But some of it is
completely justifiable.
Houstonians who voted against the ordinance may not have known it, but Jared Woodfill, Dr. Steven Hotze, Pastor Ed Young and other leaders of the anti-HERO campaign know full well that the ordinance had nothing to do with criminals invading women's restrooms. They also know that fear works, and to act on their antipathy toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered - the real reason for their opposition - they were willing to use whatever tool available. Never mind that their successful effort besmirches a city known for its tolerance and inclusivity or that it could cost Houston economically as companies, conventions and potential residents reconsider whether this is a city they want to call home. Never mind also that it conveys a message of hate and intolerance toward the GLBT community. As far as the opponents are concerned, the ordinance had to go by any means necessary, including a bald intent to deceive.
Meanwhile, back in the Houston media, if it bleeds it leads agenda and its overall
laziness helped to enable the bigots.
I guess my question is did the local media engage in laziness or did it give a wink and a nod to the Houston and statewide bigots who are presently gloating over HERO's defeat?
No matter. The fact remains that some of the tolerance we have known in Houston died on Tuesday.
We can thank Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, former Harris Co. Republican Chair Jared Woodfill, Republican ad man Jeff Norwood, Dr. Steven Hotze, Second Baptist's the Rev. Dr. Ed Young and other Houston area clergy for bringing out the absolute worst in us.
