Gov. Greg Abbott
With less than three full days left in the Texas Legislature’s special session, a group of LGBT and other civil rights organizations — including the Human Rights Campaign, Equality Texas, the ACLU of Texas, the Texas Freedom Network and the Transgender Education Network of Texas — this morning (that’s Monday, Aug. 14) delivered a list of more than 50,000 signatures from people who have this year opposed anti-transgender bathroom bills (in all their forms) and other anti-LGBT legislation.
Accusing some lawmakers of “working systematically to roll back the rights of LGBTQ Texans piece by piece,” a press release from the Texas Freedom Network said that the 50,000-plus Texans represented by the signatures come “from across the ideological spectrum” but area “united by a single belief: legislating discrimination is bad for Texans and bad for Texas.”
The list of names were delivered to Abbott, Patrick and Speaker of the House Joe Straus, R-San Antonio.
“We ask that these elected leaders hear what thousands of their constituents have taken direct action to say to them: Texas must stop wasting taxpayers’ time and money to pursue discriminatory legislation that would harm not only some of our most vulnerable Texans, but all Texans,” the press release declared.
The signatures were delivered after Abbott threatened over the weekend to call yet another special session if House lawmakers failed to pass more of the right-wing agenda he set for the this first session before it ends on Wednesday.
