Daniel Williams DANIEL WILLIAMS | Legislative Queery Instant Tea reported Monday that the reporting requirement proposed by the “big” anti-bullying bills (HB 224, SB 245) will be amended so that the provision that school districts file annual reports on instances of bullying in enumerated categories will now only require a report — with the specifics [...]
Lorie Burch LORIE BURCH | Chairwoman, North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce As chairwoman of the North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce, I am disappointed with Mayor Tom Leppert’s recent statements denouncing the Obama Administration’s statement that it will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government and certain states [...]
Michael Anderson: “Mucinex made me do it.” STEPHEN V. SPRINKLE | Unfinished Lives In one of the grisliest murders the local Catawba County Sheriff’s Department can recall, a teen roommate used the gay panic defense to justify his alleged ax-and-shotgun murder of an older gay man. Michael Anderson, 19, of nearby King’s Mountain, is accused [...]
JESSE GARCIA | Stonewall Democrats of Dallas Expired members of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas and LGBT community members interested in joining the organization need to renew or join by Thursday, Feb. 17, in order to participate in this year’s endorsement screening for municipal elections. Hotly contested races for Dallas mayor and heavily LGBT city council [...]
HARDY HABERMAN | Dungeon Diary There is a surprise! Not really. GOProud, the allegedly gay Republican organization whose involvement with the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference stirred up so much anger among the right-wing they are politely being asked to not come back. GOProud’s presence atthe conference was enough to make a few very [...]
DANIEL GRANEY | TEXAS STONEWALL DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS The Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus (TSDC) announced that it will present three awards at its Second Biennial Statewide Conference in Austin on March 6. The awards will recognize a TSDC member for outstanding leadership, a local Stonewall Democrats chapter for its political achievements and a politician for her [...]
DANIEL WILLIAMS | Legislative Queery Texas House Speaker Joe Straus has finally announced the committee assignments for the 82nd Texas House. As I predicted last month the partisan breakdown of the committee chairs roughly reflects the distribution of party control in the House with 11 Democratic chairs and 25 Republicans (not including the four select [...]
HARDY HABERMAN | Dungeon Diary The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, mandated rolling power outages to reduce demand during peak periods, at least that was the story. These lovely folks gave no warning, they just started cutting power. Now comes word that critical services did not get cut — hospitals and emergency services, [...]
David Mack Henderson DAVID MACK HENDERSON | Fairness Fort Worth Junior high. High school. Funny how quick those little words can raise the hair on the back of your neck if you grew up struggling with your identity as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. No matter the challenge — whether internal acceptance or finding your [...]
Members of the 2011 Dallas Woody’s Wreckin’ Crew include Jesse Baker, Ray Bishop, Ruben Castillo, Craig Clifton, Scott Dye, Alan Evans, Mark Fiorello, Mark Keerbs, Brian McCall, Luke Quinter, Jason Ramsey, Nick Sehr, Andy Soderberg, Charles Urich and Head Coach Chris Lawson. BRIAN McCALL | Special Contributor LAS VEGAS — In what many consider one [...]
