Houstonians to vote on same-sex benefits

With city officials having finished their certification of petition signatures this week, voters will get their say in November on a charter referendum to decide whether the city should ban health benefits to same-sex domestic partners.

News of the certification was met with skepticism from opponents of the measure, who said they will challenge the validity of the signatures in hopes of keeping the measure off the ballot.

City Secretary Anna Russell said her office confirmed that 21,028 signatures on the petitions corresponded to registered city voters. Supporters needed 20,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

"We have concerns, based on some of the tactics during the signature-gathering campaign, that there were some shenanigans going on," said Grant Martin, a gay activist organizing opposition to the amendment.

Martin said proponents of the amendment "were going into gay and lesbian business establishments, wearing T-shirts with pink triangles and asking people to sign to protect gay rights. We just want to make sure this is on the up and up.

"And if it is, we're ready to campaign," he said. "We think that the citizens of Houston do not want to deny access to health care to gay and lesbian city employees and that we'll prevail in November. But, obviously, we all hope we don't have to spend a million dollars to have that fight."

David Wilson, a Houston businessman and former candidate for city office, labeled Martin's accusations "a frivolous challenge. I challenge them to find one person who signed it who was coerced or forced to sign it."

Wilson, the founder of Houstonians for Family Values, has accused opponents of threatening his life, shooting into his office building and putting his name on a letter disparaging blacks and gays.

"This isn't a gray issue with most people," Wilson said. "The majority of people in the city of Houston are pro-family and they're going to vote for a pro-family charter amendment."

But Wilson does not appear to have the full support of local conservative political leaders.

When Wilson first launched his petition drive in February, 14 politicians and conservative activists sent out a letter trying to short-circuit the effort.

Although they said they agreed with the sentiment of Wilson's stance, the signers -- which include Harris County Republican Party Chairman Gary Polland, Conservative Republicans of Harris County Chairman Steven Hotze, City Councilman Rob Todd and Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt -- said they could not support the referendum or what they termed the "self defeating" rhetoric of negative attacks and personal condemnations.

Polland said Wednesday the group would send out another letter and told a reporter that copies were available from conservative political consultant Allen Blakemore. But Blakemore said later that the letter would not be sent, because some of those who signed it appeared to have second thoughts.

"There is getting to be a plethora of things on the ballot, and everybody's trying to figure out what they want to do," he said.

Brown proposed offering health benefits to same-sex partners of city employees earlier this year, which prompted Wilson's petition drive.

Brown later dropped his proposal in favor of an ordinance to protect city employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, race, religion, age, gender or disability.

Brown changed tacks at the urging of gay activists, who believed the anti-discrimination ordinance would be easier to pass and would lay the political foundation for eventual approval of same-sex benefits.

Houston has moved steadily leftward in the past decade even as TX has veered more Republican. Many middle-class whites have deserted Houston for the outlying cities. Left behind are the poor and minorities, the backbone of the Texas "democracy." Many Houston streets, once clean as a whistle, are now littered faster than the city workers can remove the debris. Houston has had liberal mayors for years, and the city itself is represented in Congress by strident liberal Democrats, such as Sheila Jackson Lee, Gene Green, and the potential senator, Ken Bentsen. I wouldn't hold out much hope that Houston will reject the "same-sex" partners referendum. Houston folk are now nearly as "clueless" as those poor souls in NYC.

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