Dallas Observer article on Homophobia and City Hall Invocators. Plausible deniability and excuses by City Hall.
Remember, subscribers learned about this issue in the Dallas Gay Liberation newsletter first.
Being selected to give invocations before the Dallas City Council gives a group prestige, publicity, and legitimacy.
This morning the Dallas Observer had an article on Dallas City Council meeting invocators. The following is the link: (Links to Dallas Gay Liberation newsletter posts for background info will be at the end of this post.)
First thing, the City Council members who I thought had chosen the speakers stated that they don’t choose the persons who give the invocations but that the Mayor’s Office does.
The City Council members introduce their speakers enthusiastically and praising them heavily so I made this wrong assumption.
Sebesta blames the speaker picks on the council members who introduced them, but this may not be the best indication of who chose each speaker.
From the article:
Bazaldua said council members usually introduced the invocation speakers because they’re from their district, but that doesn’t always mean they picked them.
However, in this video Adam Bazaldua seems fairly enthusiastic about this anti-Gay religious group. Go to 7:20 to see the video of Adam Bazaldua speak on This homophobic church.
The words “plausible deniability” comes to my mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability
I am not sure what these two sentences spoken by Bazaldua mean:
If the mayor’s office picks someone from his district, he’ll introduce them. Since Sebesta’s comments at City Hall in September, Bazaldua said he’s declined to do so.
So the first sentence mean that if another homophobe is picked to be an invocation speaker he will introduce them, but the second sentence says he won’t. Which is it?
Bazaldua further states:
Bazaldua said he now plans to leave the council chambers during future invocation speeches. “I believe it doesn’t speak to the inclusivity that the city of Dallas touts,” he said.
Don’t walk out Bazaldua, stay in the chambers and stick up for the LGBTQ+.
Be like Lil Nas X and clap back.
So there is more plausible denialbility.
Tristan Hallman, the mayor’s chief of staff, said Johnson doesn’t pick the invocation speakers. “We do that at the staff level,” he said. Johnson may recommend one, similar to how others on council might, but he isn’t handpicking each one.
So no elected official is responsible for these persons. Mayor Johnson speaks at about the invocator starting a little after 0:25 in this video and just pours on the praise.
I have a link to a post about all the anti-Gay Metroplext universities at the end of this post.
Before we discuss more evasions of responsibility, I would like to remind readers that a member of Jim Denison’s group was chosen to speak. This is one of his tweets.
These are the people being given prestige, publicity and legitimacy by being allowed to give invocations at the Dallas City Council.
More evasions of responsibility. From the article.
Johnson may recommend one, similar to how others on council might, but he isn’t handpicking each one. Additionally, Hallman said the selection of a speaker isn’t an endorsement of everything they believe.
This is a misdirection.
We aren’t asking that they have to endorse everything they believe.
We are just requesting this.
DON’T HAVE HOMOPHOBES GIVE INVOCATIONS.
This also shows how Tristan Hallman regards the rights of Gays as being some liberal frill or a triviality.
Further Hallman has more misdirection and poses false opposites:
“We don’t ask them to fill out a survey or something like that about their political views,” Hallman said. “… We’re not necessarily aware of everything everyone’s said before they come in.”
I did NOT raise the issue of their political views. I did NOT ask for a survey. I am NOT asking that they know everything about them.
Again, I am just asking for the following.
DON’T HAVE HOMOPHOBES GIVE INVOCATIONS.
It isn’t that complicated.
Then Hallman then tries this excuse.
“There’s obviously a difference between a point of view espoused at the horseshoe versus elsewhere in the city.
Again, giving an invocation gives a group publicity, prestige, and legitimacy which helps the group in what they do “elsewhere in the city.”
Giving an anti-Gay group publicity, prestige and legitimacy is an enabling factor for that anti-Gay group’s agenda which includes their anti-Gay agenda.
To me, Hallman is just willfully refusing to understand the issue and just pulling excuses out of the air.
Do you think they would select the Hebrew Israelites to give an invocation? Do you think they would select a pastor from an anti-Semitic racist Christian Identity church to give an invocation.
However, for all I know, they might select a pastor from the Stedfast Baptist church, which calls for the death penalities for Gays with this excuse making mentality.
From the article:
Hallman added that the mayor took Sebesta’s words and research to heart, and the city is looking into how it can do things differently.
So far it seems City Hall and Hallman are fishing for excuses and plausible deniability. I suppose I can always hope.
I do recommend that chaplains with the City of Dallas are likely good choices. Dallas County often uses them and these chaplains don’t seem to be anti-Gay.
I will be posting on the follow up and I also need to post on my latest letter to Mayor Johnson about the Marketplace Chaplains shown below.
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[1] This Part One has links to Part Two and Part Two has a link to Part Three.
[2] About Marketplace Chaplains. The following Part One has a link to Part Two.
[3] Metroplex anti-Gay universities.
This is the link to the petition to get a Human Rights Commission at Change.org https://chng.it/XrsMZ9P8cR Please sign and share. If we had a human rights commission then, this would likely not have been a problem in the first place.
