Does Fort Worth ever cross your mind?

Text message @ 546P (CDT): Large protest tonite at tarrant courthouse as a result of hate raid at new Rainbow Lounge. One person in icu with head injury after being thrown on the floor by police. Ugh FW's own Stonewall.

I was a The Social with BCBC when that text message arrived from a friend and reader of Str8 Up With A Twist. He is now a Fort Worth resident. I read it and thought, "WTF?"

Even though I grew up in Haltom City and call Haltom City home I did do consider Fort Worth home. It's a medium sized that is sometimes big town forward and sometimes small town backwards. Fort Worth has billed itself as Cowboys & Culture and Where The West Begins and Dallas Is Where The East Peters Out.

Many years ago when I was in 6th grade back in the '70s, Fort Worth changed it's City Council to single member districts so that minorities would have a fair chance of winning representation on the council. In that first election, a family friend of ours won a seat and became the first Mexican-American Hispanic on the council.

The city has a very diverse population and in the most recent City Council election, one of the districts elected a gay, white male to the seat. Yes. There was some controversy because of outsider money being funneled in to support his campaign but hey folks, that's politics!

So anyway, I was in Fort Worth on the weekend of the 19th and happened to ask if there were any new bars in town and I was told about the Rainbow Lounge. It just opened. Imagine my surprise when I got the text message. Then I read this from the Fort Worth Startlegram Star-Telegram. Then I read this from Daily Kos.

I feel like this is a situation of 1 step forward, 40 years backwards.

OK Fort Worthians...you were upset about outsiders contributing to a political campaign in your city? Just watch out! This incident is being spread via bloggers and Facebook and now all eyes are you. MAKE THINGS RIGHT! Just sayin'.