Omar Araiza Posts

Another major move in the legal battle over preserving Houston's same-sex benefits: Mayor Annise Parker and the city of Houston moved a lawsuit by the Harris County GOP out of Republican Judge Lisa Millard's court. The Republican judge halted the city's same-sex benefits policy by signing a temporary restraining order without first giving the city any proper notice.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has big hopes for immigration reform in 2014, but it's not to see it finally become reality. Cruz, who was from the start a very vocal opponent of the immigration reform bill passed in the Senate, admitted in a recent interview with Houston-based radio host Michael Berry that blocking immigration reform in 2014 is all about helping Republicans — forget the lives of the millions of people and their families affected daily by our current broken system.

The Harris County GOP sued the City of Houston on Tuesday, challenging Mayor Annise Parker's decision to extend health and life insurance benefits to legally married same-sex couples whose marriages have been recognized in states with marriage equality laws. The new policy has been put on hold by District Judge Lisa Millard after signing a temporary restraining order. The policy won't go before a judge until next month after New Year's Day, on Jan. 6, 2014.

Using surveys, social networks, pornographic searches and dating sites, research data suggests that at least 5 percent of American men are predominantly attracted to other men, according to a new study by a Harvard economist. The troubling part of the findings show that even with major advancements of LGBT rights sweeping across the nation, millions of gay men still live in the closet — especially in Southern states with oppressive anti-gay laws.

House Speaker John Boehner, after recently hiring a new Immigration Policy Director, has promised to move toward a vote on immigration reform. Reform has been stalled in the House, though a majority of Americans support reform that allows a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented in the US.

The Department of Homeland Security announced last week that family of U.S. military members will no longer have to face deportation. The constant fear that any one of their loved ones might at any time be deported out the country seems to add an unnecessary "stress and anxiety" on troops.
Reacting to the news was Jon Solt

Houston's Harris County's new sheriff is leading the way by adopting one of the most comprehensive policies in the U.S. that protects LGBT inmates. The policy includes the protection of transgender inmates by allowing trans individuals to be housed based on their gender identity.

In efforts to stop singling out LGBT students, Baylor University's student government voted to replace the phrase "homosexual acts" in the student sexual misconduct policy with "non-marital consensual deviate sexual intercourse," but student council president Wesley Hodges vetoed the change.

Slowly but surely, Texas is coming around on the issue of same-sex equality in marriage. Almost a majority of Texans now believe in the freedom to marry, and big companies like B&W Pantex in Amarillo are allowing same-sex benefits to their employees.

Republicans running for Texas lieutenant governor are practically tripping over themselves to oppose the 2001 law that affirms in-state college tuition rates to young undocumented immigrants living in Texas. However, the GOP front-runner for the state's top spot is more wary of alienating Latino voters and dismissing the Texas DREAM Act.

Police in the small Texas town of Springtown, located northwest of Fort Worth, are investigating a possible hate crime in a brutal and bloody attack on a gay man after he arranged a meeting with another young man using the mobile app called MeetMe.

The Associated Press sent six questions on gay rights to Texas's Republican candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Their survey shows that all GOP candidates support the state's gay marriage ban and most say local ordinances that prohibit gay discrimination violate other people's freedom of religion. Some also still believe "the gay" is a disorder.

Transgender widow Nikki Araguz's marriage battle is moving onward to the 13th District Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi, which will hear her marriage case today. Araguz is attempting to have the marriage to her late husband, Thomas Araguz III, be recognized by the State of Texas. Araguz will be able to then receive her late husband's death benefits. Thomas Araguz was a volunteer firefighter in Wharton and was killed in the line of duty in 2010.

If the concept of a for-profit private prison doesn't already alarm your sense of morality, imagine a for-profit private prison that targets and would be filled with undocumented immigrants living along the Lower Rio Grande Valley border.

That's what some of the largest players from the private prison industry - including GEO Group, Corrections Corporation of America and LCS Corrections Services - are hoping to bring to the City of Mcallen in South Texas.

The San Antonio City Council voted to pass the non-discrimination proposal authored by City Councilman Diego Bernal and Mayor Julian Castro. Starting at least 15 years ago, the local LGBT community has sought to add sexual orientation and gender identity to groups protected from discrimination. Two serious attempts in 1998 and 2011 to get non-discrimination laws to cover LGBT rights failed to pass.

It has been several decades since Austin Democrat Glen Maxey became the first openly gay person to be elected to the Texas Legislature and since 2003, when Maxey left the Texas House, no out LGBT person had served in the state legislature until Representative Mary E. Gonzalez was elected last year. The Dallas Voice is reporting that four openly LGBT candidates are running for office this year.

Close to 50 immigration reform activists from TexasRITA, LULAC, Mi Familia Vota and other groups gathered this week at U.S. Congressman Blake Farenthold's (R-TX) Corpus Christi office to deliver 10,000 petitions asking for the Congressman's support of immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship.

Congress has gone home for a month-long August recess after a very weak showing of leadership at our nation's Capitol. After all these months in Washington, D.C., our GOP-controlled House has little to show for but the now 40th vote to repeal Obamacare and 13th time defunding an organization that no longer exists.