Visit Fort Worth, also known as The Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau, receives more than $9 million in Fort Worth taxpayer money each year to promote Fort Worth, but last spring the group joined forces with transgender activist groups to lobby against Texas laws that would protect religious liberty. (A full list of laws the Fort Worth CVB against lobbied against is at the end of this article.)
The CEO of the Fort Worth CVB, Bob Jameson, spoke at an Austin press conference on March 27, 2019, “At Visit Fort Worth, we’re in the tourism business, and at the heart of all tourism is a warm welcome.” By this he means boys should be allowed in girls’ intimate spaces, boys should be allowed to compete in girls’ athletics, and children should be allowed to have surgery to change their sex. And Mr. Jameson thinks you’re a bigot if you disagree. That doesn’t seem like a warm welcome.
He continued at the press conference:
“In Fort Worth we are proud to have the oldest nondiscrimination ordinance in the state including sexual orientation from discrimination put in place in 2000. As we continued to learn about discrimination and its negative consequences we added gender identity and expression in 2009. These protections have not only worked for us in Fort Worth, but they’ve contributed to our community spirit, shared values, and to our economic growth.”
Mr. Jameson is a gentle man with a compelling personal story, but he is dangerously misled on matters of religious freedom and the transgender revolution. And he is either ignorant or intentionally misrepresenting the truth when he says “gender identity and expression” have contributed to Fort Worth’s “shared values” and “economic growth.”
In 2016 when Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Kent Scribner exploited the “gender identity and expression” clause in the school district’s nondiscrimination code to impose his illegal transgender guidelines, it hurt our community spirit. And the shared values revealed were those from Dunbar to Northside and Paschal to South Hills where a multi-racial coalition of parents and taxpayers stood opposite to Mr. Jameson’s position.
Mr. Jameson said religious freedom bills in the Texas legislature “would have negative economic impacts that will be long lasting.” And he summarized, “Our job is to speak up before the damage happens.” This empty fear-mongering and pessimistic paranoia is the opposite of the Fort Worth spirit.
As one legislator said in response to Mr. Jameson’s rhetoric, “This false rhetoric is irresponsible when the Texas economy is at stake. It is not new for groups to oppose legislation in efforts to justify their lobby retainers or increase fundraising, but this opposition is anti-business and flat-out dishonest.”
Of all the people in Fort Worth, Mr. Jameson should know that some of the largest and most economically beneficial conventions in the City are conventions of religious people who would be deeply offended to learn of these facts – conventions like the Southwest Believers Conference and Texas Homeschool Conference.
We hope Visit Fort Worth and its CEO will reconsider its hostility towards people of faith and stop lobbying the Texas legislature with taxpayer funds to discriminate against religious groups.
Visit Fort Worth 2019 Legislative Agenda Opposed These Bills:
- House Bill 1035 by Bill Zedler, R-Arlington, is a broad piece of legislation that would prohibit the state or any other governmental agency from penalizing religious organizations, businesses, or individuals for actions related to their “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.” It would apply to occupational licenses and other means of accreditation, marriage-related goods, marriage performances and licensing marriage counseling, sex reassignment surgeries and counseling and the treatment of public school students and staff.
- House Bill 3172 by Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, and its companion Senate Bill 1978 by Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola. The bills would prohibit the state or any other governmental agency from taking any adverse action against someone for actions taken due to their “beliefs or convictions regarding marriage.”
- House Bill 4357 by Scott Sanford, R-McKinney, would protect counselors, doctors, nurses and social workers from “disciplinary action or civil liability for providing services or counseling based on the provider’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”
- House Bill 4041 by Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, would prohibit the enforcement of federal rules or laws that don’t exist under state law and aim to regulate firearms, establish a religion or prohibit the free exercise of a religion or abridge the freedom of speech, the press, right of assembly or right to petition the government for a grievance.
- House Bill 4512 by Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, would expand state law to prohibit any civil or criminal penalties against any person who refuses to perform a marriage ceremony because of their beliefs.
- House Bill 4497 by Cole Hefner, R-Mt. Pleasant, would protect anyone who provides “marriage-related goods and services,” including photographers, disc jockeys, florists, bakers and others, who rejects potential customers based on their “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction” that marriage is defined as a union between one man and one woman.
- Senate Bill 15 by Creighton. See description above.
- Senate Bill 17 by Perry and its companion House Bill 2827 by Phil King, R-Weatherford. See description above.
- Senate Bill 85 by Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, would protect those who are licensed by the state to provide “psychological services” to cite their faith in order to turn away potential clients.
- Senate Bill 880 by Hughes, would create new rules for public colleges and universities that would prohibit them from restricting free speech in specific areas of campus, and require them to allow student organizations to make membership decisions based on their beliefs or codes of conduct.
- Senate Bill 1009 by Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, would give legal cover to judges to decline to perform a marriage ceremony based on their “sincerely held religious belief.”
- Senate Bill 1107 by Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, and its companion House Bill 2892 by Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, would give legal cover to doctors and other medical professionals who refuse to provide care to someone based on a belief in God, “religious faith or spiritual practice,” or ethical view.
- Senate Bill 2013 by Pat Fallon, R-Frisco, would ax any municipal or county regulation that conflicts with state law or is more restrictive than state law.
- Senate Bill 2325 by Creighton would allow student organizations to refuse to accept certain people and would set out new free-speech rules for public colleges and universities.