Continuing The Work After Houston’s Fallen HERO

Our work toward justice continues.

Yesterday, Houston voters rejected Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), an ordinance that would have protected the rights of 15 different categories of people.

Opponents of HERO centered their campaign on a shameful, transphobic message—“No Men in Women’s Bathrooms.” Faith leaders in Houston advanced this harmful message and advocated to defeat a law designed to preserve human dignity—and it worked.

Add Your Name: Discrimination Is Not A Christian Value!

During times such as these we must really begin to interrogate what it means to be an LGBTQ- affirming person of faith. Many of us already know what it is like to be subjected to spiritual abuse. Many of us were raised to believe that the very nature of who we are is somehow oppositional to the God we praise.

While the fear-based tactics of homophobic and transphobic faith leaders in Houston are not a surprise, they challenge us as LGBTQ-affirming Christians to chart the next steps for our work and for our movement.

Today, we celebrate and honor all of the HERO supporters who took the risk of sharing their identities and experiences throughout this campaign. However, today we also uplift our trans and gender non-conforming siblings and recognize that this perpetual violence is not to be taken lightly. This hatred is at the core of the violence and intimidation trans and gender non-conforming people face every day. And this unbridled hatred is the foundation of the violence that has killed 23 transgender women already in 2015.

This is why we must show the world what being an LGBTQ-affirming person of faith really means. That it means resilience. That it means strength. That it means perseverance. That it means joy, and at times, it also means disappointment.

We must hold each other in all of these truths as we use our faith to make our bold visions for justice our realities.

Add Your Name: Discrimination Is Not A Christian Value!
Today—we will help change the story.