A Gay Mayor, A Police Dept. Targeting LGBT

With Clergy Challenging Houston Mayor’s LGBT Protections Order, Police Target The City’s Gayborhood

Wed, Apr 7, 2010 by AKA William

 

Houston has a whole lot going on lately, LGBT-wise. The city’s newly-elected out lesbian mayor recently issued an executive order that added sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression as protected classes in Houston. Wonderful news. Only, not everyone seems to be thrilled with LGBT people being seen as fully human.

Some of the area’s clergy are throwing a tantrum and using the tired argument that, because of the executive order, men will now me taking over women’s public bathrooms. “Forcing women in particular using city facilities to be subjected to cross-dressing men invading their privacy is beyond the pale and offensive to every standard of decency,” said Pastor Steve Riggle, senior pastor of Grace Community Church and an Executive Committee member of the Houston Area Pastor Council (HAPC).

While these kinds of arguments are demonstrably wrong and easy to dismiss, what is not so easy to dismiss are the claims that Houston’s police are now targeting the city’s gayborhood, Montrose, and the gays living in it.

The police unions supported Parker’s opponent, and since Parker was elected, the number of gays claiming harassment by police has skyrocketed. Stephen Bowen received a ticket for jaywalking after leaving a gay club. Bowen describes what happened, “I told them I was wearing flip-flops and there was a puddle so I just walked around. And he said, ‘That’s not acceptable.’ So they started to write out a ticket for jaywalking and then, out of nowhere, they told me to get in the back in the car that I was going downtown.”

Dozens of other gays have also complained, but the police department is claiming that they are simply responding to a request of a larger police presence in Montrose, but the locals aren’t buying it. Says local gay activist Ray Hill, “Part of that is transition from one regime to another. The rest of it is just angry bullies that, they lost an election that we won.