RIP Grackle.
For all you readers out there who enjoy bashing on Texas, I have a new one for you.
I live in Austin and since I'm a Progressive, I suffer almost by definition from the bubble syndrome. Surrounded by so many others like me, it's easy to forget the amount of crazy on the other side of the membrane. I've been pretty aggressive about defending Texas here and other places where people say stupid and asinine things like "Let's show Abbott by pulling all the military bases and NASA out of the state, that'll fix him and make him cry uncle!", which is paraphrase but close enough. But even I am long past weary of the grind that is Texas Republican insanity.
Today as I left work, listening to the venerable Austin NPR affiliate KUT, two things happened. First, they were running a report on the SCOTUS death penalty ruling (featuring Scalia no less) and I ran over a grackle that didn't fly out of the way. Anyone who has ever killed an animal accidentally while driving probably understands how I felt at that moment, which was physically ill and terribly sad. There was nothing I could have done to avoid it, but that doesn't make it any better, for the grackle or for me.
Then, on came a story about Austin City Council member Don Zimmerman, who is apparently our resident RWNJ. Now, I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to City Council of late, and I only know Zimmerman by name and not by reputation, but that reputation seems to have caught up with him in the aftermath of the SCOTUS equality ruling and it isn't pretty.
Turns out a few days ago (today was first I've heard of it) this jackass took a public dump on Facebook, and now he's facing an ethics complaint from a member of the public. Jump the gay broom for more...
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How about we let the Austin-American Statesman start things off for us:
Austin City Council Member Don Zimmerman generated controversy online after apparently having compared same-sex marriages to pedophilia on Friday night, according to a post on social media site Imgur.
A screenshot of a conversation in the comments section of a Facebook post shows a user identified as Zimmerman telling another user to replace "gay" with "pedophile" and that "there is no such thing as pedophilia, only intergenational love."
Zimmerman refused to comment when reached on his phone Friday night.
So, that's not anything we haven't heard before, right? Local wingnut got a little diarrhea of the mouth and of the soul on social media or wherever, let his bigot flag fly. It's not nice, but it isn't new. How about those screen shots to help flesh it out?
So who is this asshole anyway? I'm not gonna get too far into biograph, you know what to do if you want that. I will offer the following tidbits as back story, though, just for grins. Here are two quotes from Politifact (which I generally despise) rating him Mostly False. In general I can't stand their Truth O' Meter but I have to agree with them here.
DON ZIMMERMAN
"You don't have to be as smart as a fifth-grader to know what causes the climate is the sun. The sun. I have people tell me, "ÃÂCarbon dioxide warms the Earth."ÃÂ No, it doesn't. The sun warms the Earth."
and
DON ZIMMERMAN
"Every time you buy an airline ticket, the federal government runs a background check on you."
The first one is the real magilla IMHO, it tells you just about what you need to know.
The second one, though, that's a little less clear. I mean, technically that is true, your name is run past various "Lists", and not just the airport. I tried to receive a wire transfer while on vacation recntly. I had to call in so they could release it because my name "is the same as someone on a government list" said the person on the other end of the phone. Which list, I asked? "All of them", she said. So, I could almost give Zimmerman a pass on that, except........:
Zimmerman said he would only discuss the issue in an interview with his friend, Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works and 1370AM radio talk show host of "Come and Talk It."
During the June 28 interview, Zimmerman said he is concerned pedophiles would use the same "playbook"used by marriage equality advocates to lower the age of consent. He said that is how radicals change society's culture, and it is how same-sex marriage advocates changed the definition of marriage.
Cargill said the interview was pre-recorded, and Zimmerman has since left the country on vacation and is unable for further comment.
"By the time this gets played, I'll be in an airplane at 30,000 feet," Zimmerman said during the interview.
Except he's giving that interview on a right wing AM talk show called "Come and Talk It". Sigh.
And how do folks around City Hall feel about this? Not so good it seems:
His comments have generated backlash and controversy on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit and even made headlines overnight on the Austin-American Statesman. Meanwhile, a rainbow flag is waving above City Hall after several Austin City leaders came out strongly in support of the same-sex marriage ruling this week, including Mayor Steve Adler and Police Chief Art Acevedo.
"I was just absolutely flabbergasted and disgusted by what I saw on the Statesman," Davies said. "He's clearly running from the issue. I asked him directly multiple times and he didn't even answer them at all. It was very much just like dodging the question, definitely dodging the question. I'm totally disappointed."
"It's very sad. Not just the comments he made on Facebook which, frankly, I had heard him make on the campaign trail, but the fact that at his own Town Hall that he convened to speak to his residents, he shut it down at the end when the residents still wanted to talk," Flannigan said. "So he apparently prefers to speak to the media in other parts of town than his own residents in his own town hall."
For his part, Zimmerman was unapologetic when asked about it his statements during the Council meeting:
"I'm glad you brought that up," Zimmerman responded. "Ten years ago, when we had the marriage amendment here in Texas, we had a constitutional ballot issue. I worked pretty hard on that. I spent some money, quite a bit of time. I was working on the side of defining marriage legally as one man one woman and, as you know, Travis County voted against by about 60 percent. The rest of the counties including Williamson, where we are now, and the rest of Texas voted in favor of the amendment, 70, 72 percent, something like that."
"I have a long track record of defending the idea of marriage as one man, one woman. This debate has just started. I don't think the Supreme Court decision will solve anything," he explained. "I told you my position, I defended marriage as between man and a woman so how does your question affect District 6?"
TL;DR:
I've been a homophobic asshole all my life. I ran as one and you voted for me. Suck it (but not in a gay way, tho).
HOWEVER, there is that little problem of the ethics complaint that has been filed against Zimmerman by a member of the public. Mark Walters, a local Civil Rights and Administrative Law attorney, filed the complaint based on City ethics rules that compel City employees to not be assholes to the public and instead to treat us with "dignity and respect". Only time will tell if the CoA has it in them to actually follow through on this complaint. I won't necessarily hold my breath, but in the wake of the SCOTUS ruling it is certainly possible that public pressure will force them to act.
Here is a link to that complaint. Here is page one for your viewing pleasure. Click to embiggen:
Anyway, I still feel bad about the bird (sooo sorry birdie) but it makes me feel a little better to know that it's going to get harder and harder for these people to spew their nasty bile in public without consequences. At least in Austin. Maybe. I'll keep you posted.
Cynically and somewhat bitterly yours after killing a bird,
- bastrop
Now the Tops.
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June 28, 2015
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