In recent weeks, Dallas Voice — the newspaper as a whole and me as managing editor — has come under fire from folks in the community who were angry that the voice, on July 25, published an article, online and in print, that I wrote in which Mike Hendrix officially announced that he is challenging incumbent Rep. Terry Meza in the 2026 Democratic Primary for the Teas House District 105 seat.
LGBTQ+ people and Democrats were angry that we allowed Hendrix to make his announcement and describe his “platform” without seeking comment from Meza. These activists expressed their anger publicly in social media posts slamming Hendrix, the Voice and me. Last week, Democratic National Committeeman Jeff Strater submitted a guest column that included those same criticisms.
And good for them. Good for the social media posts. Good for Jeff Strater for writing a column and sending it to us here at the Voice.
And no, I intend no sarcasm here: Dallas Voice serves the LGBTQ community, and we want that community to help hold us accountable. We want the community to call us out when we make a mistake.
That’s how we can continue to improve and serve our community better. And when we make a mistake — whether it is something as simple as a typo or far more important and egregious, we will acknowledge that mistake. We will do everything we can to make it right.
However ….
I am not writing this today to apologize for the article in which Mike Hendrix announced his campaign, but rather to explain the process here. That article was not, in any way, an endorsement of Mike Hendrix. It was just an announcement; an LGBTQ+ person was announcing that he was running for public office, laying out his campaign platform, his credentials and the issues he feels are important in the race.
It was no different from a similar campaign announcement that I wrote and Dallas Voice published on July 18 in which Nathan Hawks, a gay man from Carrollton, announced that he was running for the District 24 seat in Congress. Republican Beth Van Duyne is the District 24 incumbent. The announcement included no comments from Van Duyne. And Dallas Voice didn’t get any criticism over that (not that I know of).
Rep. Terry Meza is not LGBTQ+. She is, however, a staunch ally of the LGBTQ+ community, and if she wanted to “announce” her re-election campaign in an article in Dallas Voice, we would be happy to do that.
In fact, since she has an opponent who is openly LGBTQ, Dallas Voice would be willing to do a similar announcement for Beth Van Duyne if she approached us — not because Dallas Voice endorses Van Duyne in any form or fashion. Not because Dallas Voice as a media organization or any staff members as individuals agree with her on any issue whatsoever.
Just because she is an elected official who will be running against an openly-LGBTQ+ candidate, and we believe the LGBTQ+ community should know what Van Duyne says about herself and the issues.
This situation reminds me of when, a few months, ago, Dallas Voice wrote an article about Log Cabin Republicans of Dallas reforming as an organization. We ran an opinion column from a couple of Log Cabin members and have quoted them in articles related to political issues.
And people in the LGBTQ+ community were outraged — absolutely aghast that the LGBTQ+ newspaper would publish anything that might be even remotely considered positive about a gay Republican group, much less allow someone from such a group to speak on the issues or express an opinion.
But see, the thing is, Log Cabin Republicans are LGBTQ+ people. They are part of the LGBTQ+ community. And Dallas Voice is here to be the voice of our whole community, even those people and parts of the community that you may not agree with or like; even the parts of the community that we as a news organization and as individuals may not agree with or like.
One more point to make: The article announcing Mike Hendrix’s campaign for the Texas House and the article announcing Nathan Hawks’ campaign for Congress were just the beginning of Dallas Voice’s coverage of those races and those candidates. The beginning, not the end.
In conclusion, let me say this: We here at Dallas Voice expect the community we serve to hold us accountable. We welcome feedback for our readers. Have a letter to the editor?
Email it to me at Nash@DallasVoice.com. Sign your real name, and we will get it in. Don’t want to write a letter? Leave a comment on our website. You don’t have to sign your real name to comments on the website if you are not comfortable having your name attached to your opinion.
And you know what? If you have story ideas or tips or whatever, share those with us, too. We welcome and appreciate your input and your suggestions.
We are here to serve our community. Just remember, that means all of the community, not just you.
Tammye Nash is managing editor of Dallas Voice. The opinions expressed in this column — and only in this column — represent the official policy of Dallas Voice.