More of this, please.
Prayer is a staple of the Texas Capitol, where lawmakers begin each legislative day with an invocation and bowed heads.
But on Wednesday, about 50 faith leaders of various denominations lined the stairs outside the Texas House in protest. Their prayer was silent, but their message was clear: don’t legislate against LGBT Texans in our name.
Singing hymns and holding placards that read “My faith does not discriminate,” the group planned to deliver to lawmakers’ offices a letter signed by more than 200 faith leaders in Texas who oppose various proposals they see as discriminatory against LGBT people. Among those measures are two proposals that would regulate bathroom access for transgender Texans — Senate Bill 6 and House Bill 2899 — that are priority for some Republicans but haven’t progressed in the waning weeks of the legislative session.
“Often the voices of people from faith communities that are heard are voices of judgment and condemnation,”said Rev. Karen Thompson of the Metropolitan Community Church of Austin, whose congregation is mostly made up by LGBT members. “We’re here to say that there is another voice of the faith community that is welcome and encouraged.”
The letter is here, and I applaud those who cared enough to sign it. I mean, I seriously doubt Dan Patrick cares because his debased and degraded version of “faith” bears no resemblance to anything I’d recognize as such, but it’s important to counter the narrative that “Christians” and “pastors” are all on his side. And, you know, this is the objectively correct moral stance to take. I don’t know why “love thy neighbor as thyself” is controversial in this day and age, but there you have it. Note that midnight Monday (i.e., overnight from Sunday) is the deadline for bills to be voted out of committee or die, so this is it for HB2899 and SB6 in the House, modulo the usual amendment shenanigans that we see every biennium. Keep that clock going, y’all.