- Speaker Joe Straus
We’ve already told you about the anti-gay forces that have undoubtedly been working behind the scenes in the race for speaker of the Texas House, but now it looks like they may be starting to emerge publicly. The Texas Observer posted a story Friday in which John Cook, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, explained his opposition to Speaker Joe Straus. Cook’s biggest problem with Straus, apparently, is that he’s Jewish: “I got into politics to put Christian conservatives into office,” Cook says. But Cook also accuses Straus of being pro-choice and pro-gay rights:
His opposition to Straus, he said, was rooted largely in his belief that the current Speaker is both pro-choice and pro-gay rights. “He’s a pro choice person basically,” Cook said. (Earlier in his career, Straus did vote against banning gay couples from serving as foster parents and against a ban on late-term abortions, but Kyleen Wright, president of Texans for Life, has been one of his biggest supporters.) Cook called the Republicans who worked with Democrats to elect Straus “turncoat RINOs.” (Republicans in Name Only.)
As the legislative session draws closer, it’ll be interesting to see whether the so-called tea party folks who oppose Straus start to escalate their attacks based on his 2005 vote against the gay foster parenting ban. Particularly since Straus has said he voted against the ban because it would have cost the state a lot of money and gone against his libertarian principles. From a January 2009 interview in which Texas Monthly asked Straus about the vote:
STRAUS: … I’m not supportive of adoption by homosexual couples, but the whole issue of government with a fiscal note attached and government employees investigating people’s private lives caused me a great deal of heartburn. I remember looking at the expenditure of taxpayer money for that and it was a lot. And it required what? Going into people’s homes? Watching the way people dress or the way they talk? I have some pretty strong libertarian leanings, and sometimes that causes a conflict. What gave me confidence to hit the button I hit was that I was very certain that Barry Goldwater would have done the same thing.
I hear an echo of the words,
“They came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Straus has been the recipient of threats and abuse simply from his fellow Republicans simply for not being Christian or as extremist as they are, ideologically. How a person belonging to any minority can defend this party of bigots is beyond me.
Straus should go he will continue to serve and enrich himself and his cronies and not Texans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBO7lmJmjy4
That xtiangopers are against choice is true in so many ways. In their selfish, hateful, greedy world. you have no choice in anything at all. Do what they say, that’s it.
Let’s face it, Politicians are not the people in the world or in the town as I have seen.
This is absurd that Republicans would be against Straus. He is conservative and he helped to raise the republican majority.
Cook isn’t conservative. He’s bigoted. A conservative supports less government and keeping government out our private lives. Cook wants to control our lives by government authority. He’s bigoted when he talks of pro-gay rights because the rights gay citizens are seeking are equal civil rights, not special rights.
Its not the Republican party that wants him out. Its the Tea Party bigots that want him out. Does bigot mean retarded as well? I mean, they are saying we’re not bigots but we want him out because Christians are better than Jews. Do these idiots even know the defintion of the word “bigot”. Quick, someone get these morons a dictionary!