Some good-ole-boy Republicans are afraid it’s Houston’s mayor
by Susan Bankston
Houston Mayor Annise Parker is one of my favorite people, and a friend. She is as sweet as a grandmother’s kiss, but also tough as a three-dollar steak. She has been great for my hometown, the City of Houston. She first served as an at-large city council member in 1998, then was elected comptroller in 2004, and finally as mayor in 2010.
She just won re-election against eight opponents with 58 percent of the vote. What I’m trying to tell you is that she’s wildly popular. If we had a vote about whether to put a statue of her in Hermann Park next to Sam Houston, she’d win that, too.
All that time, she has been openly gay. And Houston, by gawd, is still standing. She and Kathy Hubbard have lived together for 23 years, and Kathy is often introduced as Houston’s First Lady. They are raising two adopted daughters and a foster child.
I guess the thing people like most about Annise is that she’s got Lone Ranger courage. She would walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death blindfolded and barefoot with one arm tied behind her back.
A couple of weeks ago, Annise and Kathy went to California and got married. Mostly, everybody was happy for them. True love that lasts a lifetime is hard to come by, and when two people find it, that’s generally cause to hallelujah and honky-tonk ’til you drop.
But holy moly, not so much in Republican circles, where both true and love are in short supply. Republicans are experts at injecting misery into tranquility.
Those creeps went caterwaul-crazy over Annise and Kathy getting married. They set about clattering like two skeletons making love on a tin roof. They got started yapping, and there ain’t no shuddup in their basket.
Of course, all of this counts as foreplay in most respectable Republican homes. No really, that’s a fact. If you see a Republican man go wacko over something like gay rights, women having control over their own bodies, science, or a higher minimum wage, he’s just trying to get laid. When they have little spittle things running out the sides of their mouths and their hair appears to be on fire (or at least smoldering), they are trying to get some whoopie. Okay,
so I don’t know that for a fact, but…oh hell yeah, I know that for a fact.
Dan Patrick, a senator in Austin who wants to be lieutenant governor of Texas, bellowed, “I am not shocked that Mayor Parker decided to elope to California for a marriage that is unconstitutional in Texas. This is obviously part of a larger strategy of hers to turn Texas into California.”
It’s a well-known statistic that all the gays in America live in California and they have an agenda that they carry around in a fabulous embossed-leather folder 24/7.
Goodness gracious, Dan, somebody call the coroner, because that stereotype is dead.
Mayor Parker, after noting that Patrick is running for office and needs a whipping boy, added, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And I don’t think that’s unusual.”
Oh Lord, I love this woman.
Next came Harris County Republican Party Chairman Jared Woodfill: “She’s trying to bring California values to Texas.”
“Mr. Woodfill is a little like a wind-up doll,” Parker said. “I say something and he goes on TV and says this is something I planned. It’s part of my grand agenda to promote gay rights.”
Republican boys, you need to get over this. She’s whipped you. She’s smarter, prettier, more popular, and much tougher than you are. Plus, everybody knows that love trumps hate any day of the week.
Meanwhile, they better remember that making both Patrick and Woodfill unemployed on election day is probably real high on her agenda. And that’s not unconstitutional. Even in California.
By the way, I was there last month when, for the first time, Mayor Parker was able to acknowledge Kathy as “her wife.” Tears welled up in the mayor’s eyes as she did it. My tears spilled over and ran down my face, dripping mascara on my blouse. That’s why I can’t be mayor.
I can’t quit this week without letting you see a tweet by Greg Abbott, the Republican who wants to be governor:
What? He couldn’t have worn pants? Or at least boxers?
Susan Bankston lives in Richmond, Texas, where she writes about her hairdresser at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., at juanitajean.com.

