Letter to Judge Clay Jenkins asking to protect the Dallas LGBT from hate and to have a human rights commission.
Since it seems that the City of Dallas won't be getting a human rights commision, we are going to ask Dallas County to set one up.
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Introduction
Stedfast Baptist Church is now in Cedar Hill, Texas in Dallas County. It is a church that is calling for the execution of Lesbians and Gays by the government. On July 12, 2023 they have scheduled a pastor who praised the Pulse massacre in Orlando, Florida to speak at their church. [Links to informational posts about Stedfast at the end of this newsletter.]
The possibility that a person might be incited to attack the LGBT community in Dallas is very real possibility. This letter is one of a series of letters to elected officials to take meaningful action to prevent a massacre.
We can’t just sit around and hope for the best and mouth pious slogans.
The Letter to Judge Clay Jenkins of the Dallas Commissoner’s Court
NOTE: In the letter the links to articles in the Dallas Gay Liberation newsletter are just URLs. I am replacing them with Substack small preview links.
July 8, 2023
Edward H. Sebesta
Dallas, Texas
Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins
Records Bldg.
500 Elm St.
Suite 7000
Dallas, Texas 75202
Dear Hon. Jenkins:
Stedfast Baptist church is calling upon the government to execute Gays. They have moved to Cedar Hill, Texas and their address is 332 Texas St, Cedar Hill, TX 75104.
Their Twitter account makes clear their murderous attitude towards Lesbians and Gays.
https://twitter.com/StedfastKjv . They have invited to speak at their church on July 12, 2023 Steven Anderson of the Faithful World Baptist Church who has gained worldwide notoriety for praising the massacre of Gays at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida in 2016.
A report on both Stedfast Baptist Church in Cedar Hill and Steven Anderson is in this post.
I enclose a map showing it is just 22 minutes from Stedfast Baptist church to the heart of the Gay neighborhood in Dallas. Some individual who is influenced to think the massacre at Pulse night club was a good thing and deciding to take action on his or her own, could be on the Strip on Cedar Springs in 22 minutes. In almost all of Dallas County with our good highways, a deranged individual could drive to the Strip on Cedar Springs in 30 minutes or less.
I urge that Dallas County take every measure and every means to prevent a massacre occurring on the Cedar Springs Strip in Dallas by individuals incited by incendiary rhetoric.
Further I think a preventative measure to reduce Dallas County hostility towards LGBT would be for Dallas County to have a human rights commission. This could work on the issues of racism also.
Hostility towards Lesbians and Gays is a distinguishing feature of Dallas Christianity, though in most cases Dallas Christians haven’t issued a call for the execution of Gays though some have come close to it.
W.A. Criswell, of First Baptist Dallas, said that AIDS was God’s punishment, Gays were getting divinely executed by God through AIDS, but he didn’t actually encourage someone going down to the strip on Cedar Springs and do some shooting. The death of Gays was God’s work through AIDS.
Former Dallas City Council member Vonciel Jones Hill protested an effort to bring HIV education to African American MLM (men loving men), how many died as a consequence I can’t say, but this education about HIV was vital to keep people from getting HIV and dying. To kill Gays, you don’t necessarily need to use a gun.
This didn’t keep three Dallas City Council members from nominating Vonciel Hill to serve on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) board. (Carolyn King Arnold, Tennell Atkins, Casey Thomas II).
A good representative sample of Dallas Christian hostility towards Gays would be those Christians asked to give invocations for Dallas City Council meetings in 2022. They are after all those who the mayor’s office thought would be best to give invocations.
What also is typical is Concord Pastor Bryan L. Carter national campaigning against same-sex marriage. Dallas City Council member Zarin D. Gracey is executive pastor of this church.
https://dallasgayliberation.substack.com/p/zarin-d-gracey-i-desire-to-boldly
However, Dallas Christians generally don’t call for the execution of Lesbians and Gays and instead prefer to veil their hostility with formulas like, “Love the sinner and hate the sin,” and such type nonsense.
Evangelical Christians might be quick to assert that they are distinctly different and adopt different moral postures to contrast themselves to Stedfast Baptist Church and Pastor Anderson. I think a better understanding of the situation is that Stedfast Baptist Church is merely the pot of Christian homophobia boiling over.
A human rights commission could work to lower the temperature of that pot of boiling homophobia and reduce the chance that some individual would be incited to act on their homophobia by shooting up a LGBT bar in Dallas County.
A human rights commission could come up with plans and a framework for the police forces of the cities in Dallas County to coordinate and share in a timely fashion information to identity and stop an individual planning an attempt to massacre.
The Dallas County Commissioners might have other ideas as to how to prevent a massacre in Dallas County. What counts is whether a massacre is prevented. A policy of merely hoping for the best, that with luck, a massacre won’t happen is unacceptable. An active policy needs to be in place to prevent a massacre. Flowers, candles, at the site of a massacre and sad statements issued by elected officials won’t bring victims back to life.
I look forward to seeing Dallas County take decisive measures to prevent the possibility of a massacre occurring, against LGBT, or any other group.
Sincerely Yours,
Edward H. Sebesta
Cc: Dr. Theresa Daniel, Andy Sommerman, John Wiley Price, Dr. Elba Garcia
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