11/10/2009
Showdown in Fort Worth as Task Force LGBT Recommendations Come Up for Vote; Rally Planned
A rally is planned for 5pm this evening outside Fort Worth City Hall as recommendations by a Diversity Task Force undertaken after the Rainbow Lounge Raid in July come up for a vote at City Council.
The task force recommends Fort Worth amend the city’s insurance policy in order to
implement diversity training for city officials and law enforcement officers and extend the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance to include gender expression. The recommendations also include extending domestic partner benefits, shared pensions and family leave for gay and lesbian city employees, including a company’s record on domestic partner benefits when considering city tax breaks, including sex-change surgery in city health insurance coverage, posting nondiscrimination language on job notices, including a letter to police recruits, the establishment of support groups for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, educational fairs and public events to increase awareness of the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance, and a push for state and federal anti-discrimination laws.
The conservative religious community is, not surprisingly, opposing the recommendations. On Sunday evening the activist group Queer LiberAction was scheduled to host a “Milk Box” in Fort Worth, and were run off in fear of violence by a Christian group that formed and took over the corner.
Watch the 'Milk Box' incident, AFTER THE JUMP...
Posted 8:50 AM EST by Andy Towle in Discrimination, Fort Worth, Gay Rights, News, Texas | Permalink
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You guys, Jesus is coming... CLEAN UP!
Posted by: crispy | Nov 10, 2009 9:06:45 AM
Doesn't look like Christ has set any of these bigots free. They're stuck in a hatred cage with walls made of stupidity and venality. Putrid little religionistas out of control trying hard to control others. Mentally ill.
Posted by: woodroad34 | Nov 10, 2009 9:15:36 AM
Hey You....standing there holding a stupid sign. Yes You! Jesus is coming...look busy!
Posted by: Mike | Nov 10, 2009 9:35:55 AM
I can't wait to go to this tonight! Fort Worth needs to be shaken up a little bit over this issue.
Posted by: Tiffany | Nov 10, 2009 9:59:55 AM
Jesus has been supposedly coming back for nearly 2000 years now. I'm not too worried.
Were the biblical Christ to return, I think tending to the legions of sick and suffering would be a higher priority than coming between two people who want to commit to each other.
I know, I know, It's a cliche. But I am perpetually astonished as to how un-Christlike people can be. Jesus was a man who spent his entire life improving the spiritual and physical conditions of his fellow man. I don't know how much he would like his followers living in mansions while children huddle, miserable and starving in the streets.
The cognitive dissonance required to be a wealthy Christian fundamentalist must be astonishing.
Posted by: Zach | Nov 10, 2009 10:07:53 AM
Mythras, Horus, Tammuz, Osiris, etc all of the savior deities r coming back. It is inherent to all savior cults and always has been. The jeebus myth is not unique in believing so.
The jeebus myth is the same old savior myth fairytale.
"If u'r god has to come back, then was it ever here to begin with?"
Posted by: jimmyboyo | Nov 10, 2009 10:28:18 AM
You'd better read the frickin' Bible before you stomp around with a "Jesus said...." sign. The piece of Matthew you cite includes this affirmation of sexual 'deviance'--"For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."
Posted by: Skye | Nov 10, 2009 10:35:50 AM
damn....jesus must be a pretty slow traveler, 'cause that fools been coming for a looooong time.
you'd think with all the power that comes with being the son of god...he'd have gotten here already.
Posted by: patrickb_nc | Nov 10, 2009 10:41:25 AM
that guy with the beard/bald head...looks like a "closet case"
Posted by: Disgusted American | Nov 10, 2009 10:43:26 AM
JESUS is COMING......will somebody please give him a towel to clean it up.
Posted by: Disgusted American | Nov 10, 2009 10:48:08 AM
That lady's sign is begging for a little photo shop retouch. "Christ will set you free-kin' CRAZY!"
Posted by: castaway | Nov 10, 2009 1:41:58 PM
did Jesus really say "one man + one woman = marriage" ? I need to do some bible search to find that quote.
Posted by: alan | Nov 10, 2009 2:26:48 PM
I've been watching this since day one (the day after everyone else celebrated the anniversary of Stonewall) and appreciate the demands the gay community has made. I will go to my grave convinced that someone who instigated that raid knew that this was a special day for us and decided to ruin it.
The effing fundamentalists are sideshow freaks. It's the city council that matters and their choice will determine whether I'm the proudest tourist that city ever welcomed, or if I never set foot in it again. Keep up the good work, you guys and gals.
Posted by: jerryz | Nov 10, 2009 2:55:11 PM
I don't at all support the inclusion of sex change surgeries among the city's healthcare coverage. Come on. They should do things that actually make amends for their wrong and move on.
Transgenderism does not equal homosexuality. All that demand is going to do is convince people to hate gay people more (or confuse the very distinct issues of orientation with identity).
Posted by: Liam H | Nov 10, 2009 7:24:38 PM
Jesus is coming!! Spit or Swallow?
Posted by: MicahSkin | Nov 10, 2009 10:40:18 PM
“I like your Christ.
I do not like your Christians.
They are so unlike your Christ.”
-Gandhi
Posted by: Tom | Nov 11, 2009 10:52:40 AM