Abbott tell pastors Texas needs school vouchers because the furries are coming

It’s happened, people. It’s really happened.

It’s not that Tammye Nash finally let me write about furries for no reason or for just any reason. It’s happened that I now I have a reason to write about them.

(As an FYI for those who might not know: Furries are people who are interested in anthropomorphic animals, or animals with human characteristics. They have “fursonas,” and wear “fursuits.” Some attend conventions, and some participate in role-playing activities. It’s a whole culture.)

According to Houston Chronicle reporter Ben Wermund, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently told a crowd of pastors in Austin that furries are infiltrating public schools, thus the pastors should support his school voucher scam — uh, I mean, school voucher plan.

School vouchers have been the wet dream of Abbott and several previous Republican governor, including Abbott’s immediate predecessor, Rick Perry. But Abbott has realized he has no legacy to leave, even though he is the state’s longest-serving governor. So through his consultant, the New Hampshire-based Dave Carney, the governor has seized on the idea of diverting taxpayer dollars to allow families to send their kids to private schools as his defining legacy.

A majority of Texans are opposed to vouchers, according to most polls, and any such plan has historically faced bipartisan resistance in the Texas House. But changing the makeup of the Legislature is all it took to help Abbott pursue his dream.

In 2024, Abbott spent $6 million to defeat many of the anti-voucher Republicans who joined with Democrats to kill his priority legislation. (The Senate, led by voucher supporter Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, passed a bill with only one Republican, Sen. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville, opposing it.)

Now the governor is arguing that because of furries, public schools are indoctrinating children to cosplay and fuck while dressed as plush animals. As he told the Texas Pastors Policy Conference, the furry “movement” is “alive and well.”

“In some small rural sections of school districts in the state of Texas, they have in their schools, what are called furries. Y’all know what this is?” Abbott asked the pastors.

He brought up furries again after the subculture got a two-year reprieve from rumors that public school administrators were accommodating students who identified as animals, aka furries, across the country. The right-wing — and blatantly false — rumors about furries are part of a larger strategic campaign targeting public schools. Just as furries were attacked, grasstops conservative leaders led attacks against public schools for teaching “critical race theory,” then, later, it was “men in women’s bathrooms.”

As messaging, targeting swing voters by targeting marginalized communities was smart. Republicans think such messaging helped them reclaim the White House and Senate and preserve their majority in the House. But Democrats actually narrowed the GOP majority in the House, and the Senate was expected to flip while the presidential election was too close to call.

Those are facts.

As is the fact that furries are not decimating Texas public school districts.

Want to know what has been?

Republican elected officials, who have ruled the state for three decades.

— James Russell