Houston Chronicle Eviscerates Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Over “Cheap & Cynical” Attack On LGBT Rights

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is running his own ads in support of the ugly and lying campaign to repeal Houston’s LGBT rights law. Yesterday the editorial board of Houston Chronicle TORE Patrick a new one. They write:

Dan Patrick has been around Houston long enough for Houstonians to consider him a local figure, and he is, of course, but he’s also the lieutenant governor of Texas. As a statewide elected official he’s well aware that nine other Texas cities with populations of 100,000 or more provide their residents with the protections afforded by an equal rights ordinance similar to Houston’s. He’s also aware that not one of those cities – we repeat, not one – has experienced any problems with transgender women lurking in bathrooms waiting to attack little boys or girls. Nevertheless, Patrick is taking to the air waves this week to tell voters that “no woman should have to share a public restroom or locker room with a man.”

The lieutenant governor knows that the bathroom argument perverts the truth, which makes his ad campaign nothing more than cheap and cynical political opportunism. He has a few fences to mend with the tea party crowd that put him in office – they feel he wasn’t as obstinate and unyielding in Austin as he promised to be – and HERO opposition is a convenient opportunity for him to refresh his tea-party bona fides.

What opponents should be concerned about – in addition to the city’s reputation for openness and fair treatment if the ordinance is overturned – is making common cause with individuals whose primary aim is to undermine growing social acceptance for Houstonians who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. That position was most baldly expressed a couple of months ago by one of the more outspoken HERO opponents, longtime conservative activist, Dr. Stephen Hotze.

“Drive them out of our city,” Hotze told a gathering of HERO opponents sponsored by former Harris County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill, Tom Delay and others. “I don’t want them in our city. Send them back to San Francisco.” Hotze went on to say – while waving a sword, no less – that HERO opponents should fight gays with the same ferocity that Allied soldiers fought Nazis, ignoring the fact that Nazis slaughtered gays, as well. His audience applauded.

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