It’s been a tough week. While El Paso, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Austin and even HISD have trans inclusive non-discrimination policies, an argument popularized by Houston’s KKK swayed voters to vote down protections for vets, the differently abled, women, racial and ethnic classes and others because, as the Klan did in the 1980s, anti-equality activists told people that should equality happen, women and children would be endangered.

While it sucked to see the Klan’s argument embraced by so many, it sucked harder that so many were hesitant to talk about the reality that the anti-HERO argument was the Klan’s argument back in the 1980s. The Klan’s values were able to foment a diverse voting bloc united under transphobia to defeat the equality of practically every category the Klan hates. This week Houston embraced the KKK’s political values and it’s a sad day indeed. The Klan’s argument worked in the 1980s and it worked with voters in 2015.

How quickly people forget that one of the leaders of the anti-equality movement told a Jewish Houston city councilmember that it’s her Christian right to be able to discriminate against Jews. While the Klan-values vote bloc celebrated the apparent defeat of equality, HERO is not actually completely dead.

Mayor Parker made it clear that bringing a ERO to Houston is a major political goal. Maybe that will look like court battles. Maybe it will look like another prop vote but it will certainly look like taking the battle to those who support the Klan’s vision of Houston.

No, actually I called you transphobes, but if the shoe fits…-A https://t.co/UwCnDZhu2H

— Annise Parker (@AnniseParker) November 5, 2015

On a lighter note, I discovered a slowed down Blondie cover by Alvin and the Chipmunks. Because it’s a slowed down version, it comes off sounding a lot like what a Joy Division/Bauhaus (with a dash of the Smiths) cover of Blondie might have have sounded like. Enjoy: