Tag Archives: Annise Parker

Houston Mayor Annise Parker to kick off re-election campaign Thursday

Posted on
Mayor-Annise-Parker-300px

Mayor Annise Parker

Houston Mayor Annise Parker kicks off her third and final run for mayor on Thursday.

In 2009, Parker became the first openly LGBT person elected mayor of a top 10 U.S. city. Houston limits its mayor and council members to three two-year terms.

The campaign kickoff will be at the Four Seasons Hotel, 1300 Lamar St., Houston at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

Last weekend, Parker was in Austin addressing Stonewall Democrats at its annual Texas conference. She told Dallas Voice her opponent, lawyer Benjamin Hall III, has indicated he’ll spend as much of $3 million of his own money on the race.

“I fully expect to be re-elected, but I’m going to have to work for it,” Parker said.

Since Parker took office, Houston has earned the title America’s Coolest City to live (Forbes 2012) and others, including:

• Leading the nation in job creation (Houston Chronicle 2013)
• Best city in America to advance a career (Monster.com 2013)
• Number one city where a paycheck stretches the furthest (Forbes 2012)
• Best city in America for personal safety (Mercer Human Resources)
• Leads America in women-owned business revenue (American Express Open 2012)
• Leads America in diversity (Rice Kinder Institute 2012)

To attend the campaign kickoff, RSVP here.

—  David Taffet

Stonewall Dems gather in Austin to talk pro-equality strategy in Texas

Posted on

Former Congressman Barney Frank addresses the crowd during the Equality Forward Summit in Austin on April 6. (Anna Waugh/Dallas Voice)

AUSTIN — Texas Stonewall Democrats met in Austin this weekend for the first Equality Forward Summit to discuss how to gain support for pro-equality measures and ultimately turn Texas blue.

The event was the first collaborative effort between the Texas Democratic Party and the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus and drew about 150 people for the weekend’s workshops.

About 250 people, many standing, packed a room at the Hilton Austin Airport hotel after a day of workshops on Saturday to hear former Congressman Barney Frank speak about his time in office and the change he expects in the future.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker introduced Frank, during which she said she still considers herself an activist and has since learned of a gay agenda.

“I don’t know of any gay agenda, but I have been doing this long enough that we do have a gay agenda,” Parker said. “Our gay agenda is the ability to have jobs that we love, to support the families that we care about and to pay taxes.”

She said No. 2 on the gay agenda was serving openly in the military, which has been accomplished, No. 3 is feeling safe in schools and being free from bullying, and No. 4 is the freedom to marry.

Parker said all of the items on the list will gain support from Texas votes but it is Stonewall and the state party’s job to get that message out.

“But just as we as Democrats have a message that will resonate in Texas, the GLBT community has that same agenda that will resonate across Texas,” she said. “And when we openly advocate for that agenda, I’m standing here as proof that being who we are, being open and honest, we can win at the ballot box.”

Continue reading “Stonewall Dems gather in Austin to talk pro-equality strategy in Texas” »

—  Anna Waugh

Annise Parker to seek 3rd, final term; trans woman to run for Houston council

Posted on
Mayor Annise Parker

Houston Mayor Annise Parker at Dallas Pride in 2010.

Pool.Jenifer

Jenifer Rene Pool

Houston Mayor Annise Parker plans to seek a third and final term in November, and a transgender candidate has launched her campaign for City Council. Houston mayors and council members may serve up to three two-year terms.

On her campaign website Parker writes:

“We’re leading the nation in job creation. We’re ‘America’s Coolest City’ (Forbes) and the 7th best place in the world to visit in 2013 (New York Times). We’re the #1 city in America to further a career (Monster.com). And those are just a few examples in just the last year.”

This year Parker may have some serious opposition. Benjamin Hall III, who served as city attorney under Mayor Bob Lanier (1992–1998), told a local TV station he is seriously considering a run. As of today, he had no campaign website in place.A recent poll by a Rice University political scientist shows 57 percent of voters approve of her job performance and 30 percent disapprove.

Meanwhile, Jenifer Rene Pool, who is transgender, tells Instant Tea she’ll make a second run for an at-large City Council seat.

Pool is a self-employed consultant in construction management and permitting. She served as a member of the Buildings and Standards and Police Advisory commissions and was appointed by Parker to a special blue ribbon task force on buildings and standards. She co-hosts Queer Voices, a weekly radio show on the Houston Pacifica station.

But her biggest asset in running for office in Houston may be the three terms she served as president of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus. Both Parker and former three-term City Councilwoman Sue Lovell began their political careers heading the caucus.

Pool’s campaign kickoff event takes place from 5:30–7 p.m on Thursday at BB’S, 701 Studewood St., Houston.

Houston municipal elections are in November.

—  David Taffet

Could TX elect a lesbian governor?

Posted on

Mayor Annise Parker polled 40 percent against Gov. Rick Perry’s 47 percent in a Public Policy Polling poll

Public Policy Polling’s latest indicates that Texans are ready for a change in the governor’s office. The polling outfit looked at everyone from one of the LGBT community’s staunchest opponents to a member of the LGBT community.

Of Republican Primary voters, 41 percent want Gov. Rick Perry to run for another term while 47 percent want someone else. Among Texans in general, 31 percent favor another Perry term while 61 percent don’t.

Attorney General Greg Abbott is the governor’s closest opponent and trails Perry by just 3 points. But Abbott doesn’t have good name recognition. Among voters who know him, he leads 55 to 33 percent. (Abbott is perhaps best know in the LGBT community for challenging two same-sex divorces.)

The poll shows that Democrats have a better chance to taking the governor’s mansion if Perry wins the Republican Primary.

Against three Democrats, Perry would get 47 percent of the vote, according to PPP. San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro polls 42 percent, State Sen. Wendy Davis would get 41 percent and Houston Mayor Annise Parker would get 40 percent.

Castro was a strong supporter of nondiscrimination in San Antonio. Davis ran for re-election last year with support from Equality Texas and Stonewall Democrats of Tarrant County. Parker, who is lesbian, is in her second term as mayor, making Houston the largest city with an LGBT person at the helm.

None of the Democrats has indicated whether they have interest in running for governor yet. Abbott has told supporters he plans to run.

The general election will be in November 2014.

—  David Taffet

TX megachurch pastor Joel Osteen admits he didn’t choose to be straight

Posted on

Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen appeared on Soledad O’Brien’s show on CNN along with former Clinton advisor Richard Socarides.

Most of the news about this appearance has focused on Osteen’s quote that homosexuality is a sin.

Socarides asked him if he chose to be straight and Osteen said that being straight is just who he is.

“So how can I choose to be gay?” Socarides asked.

But then Osteen said that he really only talks about the issue on news shows like this when he’s asked about it. He said it’s not a subject he feels he knows a lot about.

“I don’t necessarily focus on that,” he said, indicating it is not something he talks about much in church.

But when pressed about homosexuality being a sin, he lumped it in with other minor sins like pride or lying.

After Mayor Annise Parker was first elected mayor, I asked about Osteen’s appearance at her inauguration. She said at the time she had good relations with him and that homosexuality was not an issue he focused on in his church of 45,000.

Watch the clip below.

Continue reading “TX megachurch pastor Joel Osteen admits he didn’t choose to be straight” »

—  David Taffet

Annise Parker says Mike Rawlings ‘will eventually come around’ on same-sex marriage pledge

Posted on

Mayor Annise Parker

But Houston mayor says she’d be ‘shocked’ if Obama evolves on marriage equality before November

During her opening remarks at the third annual Haas LGBT Journalists convention in Houston this past Friday, openly lesbian Mayor Annise Parker said that when President Barack Obama called to congratulate her on her successful mayoral bid in 2009, Parker was in an interview with her phone on silent and let his go to voicemail.

“You would think that the president of the United States would have somebody that could call ahead and say, ‘The President’s gonna call you — answer the damned phone!’” Parker told the crowd of journalists. “But no. But it did make for a nice souvenir for about a week until I accidentally erased it.”

She then went on to take “no-holds-barred” questions from the journalists about reproductive rights, conservative Christians, marrying her partner and whether the Democratic party will support marriage equality in the 2012 election. We snagged her best quotes for you below:

Continue reading “Annise Parker says Mike Rawlings ‘will eventually come around’ on same-sex marriage pledge” »

—  Daniel Villarreal

Lesbian saves Orthodox Jewish athletes

Posted on

Beren Academy

Mayor Annise Parker has prevailed. She intervened in the case of an Orthodox Jewish high school in Houston and according to the Houston Chronicle, they will be allowed to compete.

For the first time in its history, the Beren Academy’s basketball team is competing in Class 2A in the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) state basketball championships. But the Beren School is an Orthodox Jewish school and the state championships are played on Friday night — Shabbat.

Parker noted in her complaint to state officials that Texas already makes a religious exemption — games are not played on the Christian sabbath, Sunday.

The school would have had to forfeit.

With the change in time to Friday afternoon, the school will be able to compete and the Texas basketball champs (Class 2A) may just be — the Orthodox Jewish kids from Houston. Even Reform synagogues in Dallas are cheering for them.

Which reminds us of the great line from the movie Airport.

“Oh stewardess. Do you have something light to read?”

“Yes, I have this pamphlet, Great Jewish Sports Heroes.”

—  David Taffet

HuffPo profiles Annise Parker, who’s again falsely accused of violating Texas Constitution

Posted on

Mayor Annise Parker

Readers of the Huffington Post discovered Monday what Houstonians have known for a long time: Annise Parker’s a pretty cool lady. Parker was profiled by SiriusXM radio host Michelangelo Signorile, who also interviewed her for his show. The profile reveals that Parker (shockingly!) believes that the state of Texas should allow for full marriage equality and (even more shockingly!) some people are going to hate anything she does because she’s a lesbian.

“While it’s been a tough time to be an incumbent at any level of government, there’s definitely a hard-core group here that is just mortally offended that there is a lesbian mayor, and one of my opponents ran specifically because of that issue and raised it at every opportunity,” she said.

That would be Dave Wilson, who landed 12 percent of the vote in the last mayoral election. You can read the full story and listen to the audio of the interview at HuffingtonPost.com

Speaking of people who hate Annise Parker: Last week Houstini reported that the Houston Area Pastor Council attacked Parker for her stand on marriage equality, accusing her of violating her oath to “defend the Constitution” (as we pointed out, the Houston mayoral oath of office doesn’t include anything about defending the Constitution). The Houston Chronicle reports that Pastor Steve Riggle of Grace Community Church has picked up that line, telling Parker, “Respectfully, if you cannot uphold the Texas Constitution, then you should do the honorable thing and step down.”

As I pointed out last week, there’s a difference between failing to uphold a law (also known as breaking a law) and advocating for the law to be changed. The Texas Constitution has been changed 474 times since it was written in 1876. Everyday Texans across the state see things they don’t like about how the government works and say they think the law should be changed, whether it’s questioning our tax structure or feeling wearing white after Labor Day should be outlawed.

By Riggle’s standard, any elected official who doesn’t think the Constitution, as it now stands, is perfect should “do the honorable thing and step down.” While it might be tempting to imagine a state in which every politician resigned simultaneously (which the institution of the Riggle standard would undoubted precipitate), the reality of such an event, and the ensuing anarchy it would create, would undoubtedly be counter to the pastor’s wishes for a well run world.

—  admin

AIDS housing funding survives challenge in Houston city council

Posted on

Helena Brown

The city funding for four Houston nonprofits providing housing to at-risk populations living with HIV/AIDS survived a challenge from city council member Helena Brown last Wednesday. Under consideration by the council were ordinances to dispense almost $2.5 million in federal funds managed by the city to the SRO Housing Corporation, Bering Omega Community Services, Catholic Charities and SEARCH Homeless services.

Brown initially used a parliamentary procedure known as a “tag” to delay the funding for the Houston SRO Housing Corporation and Bering Omega. Any council member may tag an item under consideration, delaying the vote on the item for one week. Brown explained that she objected to government funding of charitable entities:

“I spoke last week on this very issue on grant funds and the idea that we are, you know, fighting with other entities and other governments for grant funds that really isn’t there. The federal government is in a worse condition than the city of Houston and to continue to try to milk the system where there’s no milk, is just, I mean, we’re fighting with our brothers, as I said last week, to get credit for who is going to push a friend over the cliff… We need to continue to look at the private sector and the business sector. Because even, I attended this event where this wonderful speaker was talking about the generosity of Americans and 80% of donations to nonprofits come from private individuals, not even corporations, and we need to continue to rely on that right now because the government right now, we’re broke – we need to face that reality.”

Other council members spoke passionately of the need for continued funding, arguing that by assisting people living with HIV/AIDS in achieving independence, particularly those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness,  the programs added to the tax based and help insure long-term stability.

“We don’t live in a perfect a world,” said freshman council member Mike Laster (the first out gay man to serve on the Houston City Council). “These organizations do their very best to raise money to care for the people among us, but they still need to reach out to entities that have that kind of capital, and by the grace of God this city and this government as an entity has some of that capitol, and I’m very proud that we’re able to provide those kind of services to some of my community members.”

Council member Wanda Adams, who serves as chair of the council’s Housing and Community Development Committee, also spoke in favor of continuing funding. Council member Ellen Cohen, whose district contains both SRO Housing and Bering Omega, spoke of how her life had personally been touched by AIDS:

“One of the first young men to pass away in New York City was a cousin of mine of something [then] called a very rare form on pneumonia… which we now realize was not. So I understand the need for these kinds of services. On a personal note I worked with Bering and I know all the fine work that they do, I’m addressing all the items but I’m particularly addressing [the Bering Omega funding] and feel it’s absolutely critical that we provide the kind of funding items, and that we are, in fact, our brother’s and our sister’s keepers.

After Laster asked Mayor Annise Parker the procedure for overriding a tag Brown removed her tag, but raised a new concern about HIV/AIDS housing, saying that her office had requested a list of the owners of apartment units where those receiving rental assistance lived. City Attorney David Feldman explained to Brown that federal law prohibits making public information that could be used to identify people receiving assistance through the housing program. Feldman said that, in his legal opinion, revealing the names of the owners of the apartments would violate federal law. Brown said that she was concerned that their might be a “conflict of interest” with apartment owners that needed to be investigated, claiming that as the reason for her tag.

Brown eventually removed her tag, rather than have it overturned. All four ordinances providing funding passed with only Brown voting “nay.”

—  admin

Measure would ban anti-LGBT discrimination in Houston

Posted on

Charter amendment could also allow DP benefits for city workers

DANIEL WILLIAMS  |  Contributing Writer

HOUSTON — Long-brewing plans to place a city-wide non-discrimination policy before Houston voters became public this week.

Since December a coalition of organizations and leaders have been working to draft a city charter amendment that would make it illegal to discriminate in housing, employment or public accommodations on the basis of  “age, race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, marital status, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or physical characteristic.”

The amendment would also remove anti-LGBT language added to the Houston city charter in 1985 and 2001 — which could allow the City Council to vote to offer health benefits to the domestic partners of municipal employees.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who famously became the only out LGBT person elected mayor of a major American city in 2009, has declined to comment on the proposed charter amendment until the language is finalized. She told the Houston Chronicle: “I believe it’s important for the city of Houston to send a signal to the world that we welcome everybody and that we treat everybody equally, and depending on the elements of what was actually in it, I might or might not support it,”

According to Equality Texas Executive Director Dennis Coleman, the prospect of Houston voters approving the non-discrimination amendment has ramifications for efforts to pass similar measures in the state Legislature.

“Nondiscrimination in Houston builds a better case for us when we go for nondiscrimination in Austin,” said Coleman. “To be able to tell representatives that they represent areas that already support these efforts is very helpful.”

The cities of Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth all already have similar nondiscrimination ordinances and offer DP benefits to employees.

But Houston’s form of governance makes this effort unique. While the City Council is empowered to pass city ordinances covering issues of discrimination, they can be overturned by popular vote if those opposing the ordinance collect 20,000 signatures to place the issue on the ballot.

That was the case in 1985 after Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire pushed through the council the city’s first protections for gay and lesbian Houstonians (no protections were provided for the bisexual or transgender communities).

A coalition of right-wing voters led by Louie Welch, then president of the Houston Chamber of Commerce, was able to place the issue on a city-wide ballot, claiming the policy “promoted the homosexual lifestyle.” The group also recruited a “straight slate” of candidates to run against City Council members who had favored the protections, with Welch running against Whitmire.

The public vote on nondiscrimination was held in June 1985 and Welch’s forces prevailed, but the city’s temperament had changed by the time of the City Council and mayoral races in November. A comment of Welch’s that the solution to the AIDS crisis was to “shoot the queers” was aired on local TV and few in Houston wished to be associated with him after that. The “straight slate” failed to capture a single City Council seat and Whitmire remained mayor, but the defeat of the city’s nondiscrimination policy remained.

By 1998 Houston had changed: Annise Parker was serving as the city’s first out lesbian city council member and Houston boasted the state’s first out gay judge, John Paul Barnich. Mayor Lee Brown, sensing the change, issued an executive order protecting LGBT city employees from employment discrimination. But the city had not changed that much. Councilman Rob Todd led efforts to fight the order in court, arguing that since voters rejected city-wide protections from discrimination in 1985, it was inappropriate for the mayor to institute them without voter approval. The city spent the next three years defending the policy in court, finally emerging victorious.

The joy of that 2001 victory would be shortlived, however. That year Houston’s voters approved another amendment to the city charter, this time prohibiting the city from providing domestic partner benefits for city employees. In a narrow defeat, just over 51 percent of voters decided that the city should not offer competitive benefits.

The current proposed non-discrimination amendment would remove the language added in 1985 and 2001. While it would provide non-discrimination protections it would not require the city to offer benefits of any kind to the spouses of LGBT city employees, leaving that question back in the hands of the City Council.

The organizers of the current effort are confident that this year is the year for victory.

Noel Freeman, the president of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, which is spearheading the effort, explains that the previous votes occurred in “non-presidential years,”when voter turnout in general is low, and conservative voters make up a larger percentage of the electorate.

Additionally, polling by Equality Texas in 2010 showed that 80 percent of Houstonians support employment protections for gay and lesbian people.

In order to place the non-discrimination amendment on the November ballot the coalition supporting it will need to collect 20,000 signatures of registered Houston voters and submit them to the city clerk. Freeman says that the final charter amendment language is still under consideration and that once it is finalized the group will begin collecting signatures.

Even former Councilman Todd, who once fought the city’s policy of non-discrimination for LGBT employees, supports the current effort.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition February 17, 2012.

—  Michael Stephens