Tag Archives: Texas

Continuing to backpedal from their involvement in the raid of the Rainbow Lounge, the Fort Worth police department says they are suspending “bar checks” in conjunction with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. The announcement by Chief Halstead came four days after a raid at the Rainbow Lounge by six Fort Worth officers and two Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents left …

The Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission has begun an investigation into the raid of the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth, Texas. The agency is conducting an internal investigation of the incident at the Rainbow Lounge on Jennings Street, according to a news release issued Wednesday afternoon. The TABC also conducted inspections at two bars on Rosedale Street. Meanwhile, the man who …

The above is Dan Savage’s translation of the Fort Worth Police Chief Jeff Halstead’s defense of his officers in the beating of Chad Gibson during a raid of the Rainbow Lounge on Saturday. Halstead: “You’re touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that’s offensive. I’m happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that.” …

The Dallas Morning News doesn’t seem to believe the Fort Worth cops. The Fort Worth Police Department still has some explaining to do about what happened early Sunday at a southside gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge. Or some clarifying or some illuminating or some supplementary detailing – anything to mitigate the apparently self-administered public-relations shot-to-the-foot it suffered after what …

Up to 200 people protested outside of Ft. Worth’s police headquarters yesterday after a Saturday raid on a gay bar brought charges of harassment and brutality by police. One patron was hospitalized with a brain injury. Arrests were made for “public intoxication”…inside of a bar. Witnesses say that police arrived at the nightclub about 1 a.m. Sunday and arrested seven …

San Antonio wingnut radio host Adam McManus is calling on his “army” of listeners to demand that Mayor Julian Castro pull out of his planned appearance as grand marshal of that city’s gay pride parade. Castro will be the first San Antonio mayor to do so. ACTION STEPS FOR ADAM’S ARMY: 1. Call San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro at 210.207.7060 …

Mayor J.W. Lown of San Angelo, Texas sent a FedEx to his city council to let them know he had moved to Mexico so that he could be with his partner, who had been in the United States illegally. J W Lown was elected in 2003 as the city’s youngest ever mayor at the age of 32. He has been …

According to a Research 2000 poll paid for by Daily Kos, more than one-third of Texans favor secession, with half of the state’s polled Republicans saying that the state would be better off as an independent nation. The Washington Post opines: “The secession results suggest that [Texas governor] Perry may be more in line with the average Texas Republican primary …

Edge Boston is reporting that local authorities have visited the home of ChristianU2uber, the 12 year-old boy who came out as “ex-gay” on YouTube and became the hero of the Christianist right after suffering hundreds of vicious comments. [C]oncern voiced at Internet news resources, blogs, and forums for Scott’s well-being seem to have had a result. EDGE received an email …

It’s technically true that the document that admitted Texas into the Union allows for its possible future division into five states. What would you name these five states? AMERICAblog might have some ideas to get you started.

Focus On The Family’s “ex-gay” road show was denied ad space in a San Antonio newspaper. From Christianist site OneNewsNow: Focus spokesman Gary Schneeberger tells OneNewsNow that conference organizers tried to buy an ad in the San Antonio News-Express. “And the ad was rejected as being ‘offensive,’ even though all the ad really does is recount the personal story of …

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says Texas Gov. Rick Perry is “standing up for the sovereignty of his state.” Chris Matthews rips DeLay to shreds.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry told an audience of teabaggers today that “Texas can leave the union if it wants to” and threatened “if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that.” Clip is audio only.

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here. Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who …

Hey, if those God-haters at the higher education board won’t let your school grant master’s degrees in creationism, just get your friendly local legislator to pass a law that forces them to do it. State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) proposed House Bill 2800 when he learned that The Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a private institution that specializes in the …

“Guerrilla gay bar” is a combination of flash mobbing and social activism in which a large crowd of gay and gay-friendly folks “invade” a straight nightclub for a night of partying outside the regular gay scene. Most guerrilla gay bar events are well-received by the venues, who are happy for the business and the notoriety. (Not to mention the excellent …

T.D. Jakes’ megachurch draws 30,000+ worshippers weekly and in 2001, TIME called him “the next Billy Graham” despite his famous “prosperity” style of preaching which advises that God wants you to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle. The flashy Dallas-based televangelist regularly rails against the evils of homosexuality and same-sex marriage on his television shows, calling us a “broken” people. And yesterday …

Openly lesbian Houston comptroller Annise Parker, 52, has announced that she will run for mayor. If successful, Parker will become the first openly gay mayor of a top ten U.S. city. Parker is considered one of the early frontrunners to replace Houston Mayor Bill White, who’s term limited and plans to run as a Democrat for U.S. Senate in 2010. …

The Texas Attorney General has blocked the divorce of the first gay couple to test state laws on the issue. Attorney General Greg Abbott said that since Texas law prohibits same-sex marriages and civil unions, the men could not be divorced in Texas since their union is not recognized to exist in Texas. The men, who have asked that their …