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Houston Residents Urge Beyoncé to #BeyBeAHERO and Support Nondiscrimination Ordinance
Will Beyoncé help the gays in her home town?
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Beyoncé.
LGBT residents of Houston, Texas, are taking to social media to ask Beyonce to fight a discriminatory change to state legislation.
Last year, Houston’s City Council passed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance or HERO, which was designed to protect the LGBT community from discrimination in areas such as employment and housing.
But this is still Texas and so it couldn’t be that easy.
Yesterday, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that residents will decide the future of the legislation via a referendum slated for November. If that weren’t bad enough, Khou 11 News reports the ballot language is purposefully obtuse, considering referendum doesn’t decides if the ordinance will be adopted, but whether it will be repealed.
Supporters of HERO will need to tick “for” while opponents will tick “against.”
Enter Beyoncé, Houston native.
Via the Huffington Post, LGBT Program Director of Media Matters Carlos Maza has reached out to the Grammy-winning artist asking her to support HERO.
“Beyoncé could change the debate over Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance and mobilize support for protecting LGBT Houstonians from discrimination,” he wrote.
“Beyoncé is no stranger to wading into political battles. In April, she used her Instagram to draw attention to the death Freddie Gray and urged followers to donate to the NAACP’s effort to help “those affected by the unrest in Baltimore” – posts that racked up hundreds of thousands of likes.”
People need to get out and vote and Maza’s hoping Bey’s star power can help get the message out.
“Given the amount of attention that Beyoncé’s support for the LGBT community has gotten in the past, it’s not hard to imagine the kind of positive impact her support for HERO might have on a local election.”
After Maza published his letter, local activist Ismael Melendez coined the hashtag #BeyBeAHERO and a meme was born!
The best part of the #BeyBeAHERO campaign has been THE ARTWORK: pic.twitter.com/njIwBoIlw9
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) August 6, 2015
Will Beyoncé help out the citizens of Houston? Stay tuned to find out. Same Bey time, same Bey channel.
[h/t Attitude]
