How do the “Pastors for Leppert” feel about his appearances at gay Pride?
Your weekday morning blend from Instant Tea:
1. The Texas A&M Student Senate wants to cut funding in half for the school’s gay resource center, and divert the money to a “center for traditional and family values.” According to GLBT Aggies President Camden Breeding, the Student Senate voted Wednesday night to support a state budget amendment by Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center, that would require schools with LGBT resource centers to spend an equal amount on centers for traditional and family values. The measure approved by the Student Senate, which you can read here, opposes any increase in student fees to pay for the new “traditional and family values” center, but says existing revenue should be evenly divided between the two centers. The Student Senate also agreed to advocate on behalf of Christian’s amendment as it moves through the Legislature. Well, it’s no wonder that Texas A&M is consistently ranked among the nation’s most homophobic schools. And it seems as though the notion that young people are less bigoted than their parents doesn’t necessarily hold true in Texas.
2. A bill to prohibit transgender people from marrying people of the opposite sex is yet to come up for a vote in the Texas Senate, but it could come up today, according to Daniel Williams at Legislative Queery. Williams also reports that State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, has agreed to remove enumerated categories, including sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, from Asher’s Law, a bill that would prohibit discrimination in Texas public schools.
3. Former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert continues to veer sharply to the right as he seeks the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate. A new website called Pastors for Leppert features endorsements from conservative religious leaders, including the virulently anti-gay Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas.
You can protest the Texas A&M Student Senate Bill AND the Bill making its way through the Texas Legislature by signing this petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/protect-glbt-resources-dont-defund-glbt-centers-for-traditional-and-family-values-centers#signatures
As usual these white, male, heterosexual, uneducated students have no idea of the impact their decisions will have. The GLBT Resource Center has literally saved lives….are heterosexuals having an issue in society finding resources that I am unaware of?
@Nicole I’m pretty sure Texas A&M is having a major problem promoting traditional family values since most college students have no values.
Pastors for Leppert…..Closet Cases for Leppert…
Six of one/half dozen of the other.
@ Nicole- “white, male”. You seem to be ignorant of the racial and gender composition of the student senate as well as having your own bigotries to deal with.
@Stephen – actually, if we’re discussing majorities (i.e. all that is required to pass a resolution), she’s not wrong at all. The Senate currently has 76 members; over fifty are male and the overwhelming majority can at least pass for white, if the group photo currently in rotation on the website accurately depicts the group.
Frankly what’s offensive to me isn’t that this bullshit passed, but that we’re hearing about it on the day of Muster. If you can’t set aside your bigotry to act like a human being and support your fellow Aggies no matter their background, orientation, relationship status, or “family values” on Muster, then you don’t deserve to be counted among the Aggie Family. Period.
I cannot access the petition? I am a gay graduate from TAMU ’06 and am currently in medical residency in California, and this makes me disappointed and outraged to hear 🙁 I would love to sign if you can hook me up with a working link!
@Rachel: GLBT people and their supporters obviously aren’t counted among the Aggie family as it is.
Traditional christian values – some of which include the dragging death of James Byrd some years ago, hatred of gays, etc etc.
YOu would think these people would long ago have learned that Jesus commanded up to love thy neighbor as thyself.
Sad to hear this about T A&M
Texas, you live up to your reputation. Is Texas going to ban Catholic marriages because last time I heard Catholics aren’t really Christians right? I suggest that Texas become the non-secular state it seeks to be.
@Rachel: I’m pissed about that too. Thanks, idiots for making the rest of us look like scumbags. ::sigh::
@Ben: To many of us, everyone is part of the Aggie family. Never forget that (though we are few, but vocal!) there are Allies on this campus. Believe it or not, its getting better; at a snails pace, yes, but I notice the difference from when I started in ’04.
Guns for Gays! Equality by any means necessary.
Gg many of us are armed, I think all gays and lesbians should be armed in this state, you never know when the homophobes are gonna strike, now don’t get me wrong, there are great people in this this state, but they are not in control.