Days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that gay and lesbian couples have the freedom to marry, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a formal opinion claiming that public officials could use their religious beliefs as an excuse for refusing to issue marriage licenses to or conduct weddings for same-sex couples. The Plano-based, religious-right group Liberty Institute […]
The Texas-based, religious-right group Liberty Institute has hit a repulsive new low: equating the firing of an anti-gay sports commentator/politician in the United States with the January massacre of 17 people by Islamic extremists in France. In a series of tweets this month, Liberty Institute has been claiming that sports commentator Craig James of Texas and two other people […]
Here’s another item for the “we’re not surprised” category: a Texas religious-right group is deceitfully portraying a U.S. Army chaplain as a victim of religious persecution. Liberty Institute, a litigation group based in Plano north of Dallas, is representing Capt. Joseph Lawhorn, an Army chaplain who ran into trouble for essentially evangelizing at a mandatory training on suicide prevention […]
Plano on Monday joined the growing list of cities across Texas with ordinances prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as well as other characteristics like sex, race, religion and military status. Predictably, religious-righters are angry that they might be stopped from firing, evicting or denying public services to people they don’t like — especially gay or […]
During public testimony before the Houston City Council on Tuesday, religious-right activists and spokespeople railed against the proposed Equal Rights Ordinance. The ordinance would protect Houstonians — regardless of race, gender, religion, military status and a long list of other characteristics — from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations. But religious-right activists focused their opposition almost exclusively on […]
As our society slowly moves toward treating LGBT people with the dignity and equality all human beings deserve, the reaction of religious-right groups has been almost unhinged. Their leaders have adopted increasingly vitriolic and hateful rhetoric in their desperate attempts to defend discrimination. That fact has been on clear display as the Houston City Council’s Committee on Quality of Life […]
As LGBT families gain marriage equality in state after state, the opposition is becoming increasingly desperate and vicious. Today, for example, a Texas religious-right group launched a new hate-filled and almost unhinged attack on supporters of marriage equality. In a fundraising email to far-right activists, Texas Values, the lobby arm of Plano-based Liberty Institute, claims […]
Even as Republicans who voted for the anti-gay discrimination bill in Arizona now admit they made a serious mistake, some religious-right activists are doubling down in their hate campaign. In fact, some just seem downright obsessed about gay people. Case in point: Jonathan Saenz at Texas Values, the lobby arm of Plano-based Liberty Institute. At […]
Was it wrong for the federal courts to force an end to school segregation and the ban on interracial marriage in Texas? One might be excused for wondering whether the folks at Texas Values think so. Texas Values, lobby arm of the right-wing, Plano-based group Liberty Institute, insists today that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott […]
Question: Did you do nothing today other than sit on the couch and watch TV? Congratulations, your day was far more productive than the folks over at the far-right group Texas Values, who spent the day at the Capitol fighting an imaginary opponent alongside state Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston, and others in the latest round […]
