Interesting news keeps breaking after I put together my Friday Links post and sometimes it just needs some commentary. Houston Texans Owner Bob McNair RESCINDS His Donation To Anti-LGBT Rights Campaign. Quick background: Houston city council expanded the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Since last election the people of Houston had elected an out lesbian as Mayor, this wasn’t a big surprised. But bigots were upset, and first they tried to run an initiative to repeal the ordinance, but made the very big “mistake” of collecting signatures in churches… outside of Houston. So a lot of the signatures were invalid. There are lawsuits and counter-lawsuits. Pastors gave sermons promoting the repeal effort (which ought to mean the churches in question lose their tax-exempt status, but that never happens when it is conservative churches doing it).

Despite all the evidence that the signatures were collected incorrectly and a lot of them were invalid, the Texas Supreme Court ordered the repeal initiative put on the ballot. So there’s a campaign going on, and the owner of the local NFL team recently donated $10,000 to the effort. Lots of people were upset about this, but the best response was from former NFL player and perennial LGBT-supporter, Chris Kluwe: Kluwe Rips Texans Owner Bob McNair. Besides the hilarious editorial, Kluwe also posted contact information for the Texans front office on twitter and so forth, so fans could let the organization know that they found it difficult to believe the NFL’s claims that it is not homophobic and that it welcomes all fans and all players when one of the owners does this.

The owner, who had made statements to the press (not other people speaking on his behalf, as he now claims) saying that the discrimination ordinance should be repealed, suddenly took his donation back. He can claim that he just wanted a thoughtful re-write, but his previous actions and statements don’t back that up.

Meanwhile, there’s more news in other parts of bigot land. Remember the Duggar clan, and the fact that one of their kids sexually abuses his sisters (and he was treated as the victim, not the sisters). And part of the family’s “treatment” was to send him to stay with a family friend who was later convicted of sexual abuse of children himself? Another part of the treatment was to send him to the Institute for Basic Life Principles, which is a rightwing religious organization that I have some experience with, as it used to run these big seminar things that I was enrolled in more than once. Anyway, that organization has transformed into a home-schooling thing and: Home Schooling Program Used By Duggar Family Sued For Sexual Abuse Of Minors and Five women sue Bill Gothard’s ministry that has ties to the Duggars.

The founder of the program has already been removed because of charges of sexual harassment of underage girls. His fetish for a particular kind of long curly hair is the reason the Duggars and all the other whack-o Quiverful people make all their daughters curl their hair that way, by the by. Also, the institute’s lesson plans for counseling girls who have been sexual abused or assaulted is all about convincing the girl it is her fault for luring the man to having impure thoughts.

None of this should surprise anyone, of course.