“Social justice”-minded liberal activists took a beating on Tuesday night as the HERO ordinance (Houston Equal Rights Ordinance) went down in flames at the hands of a majority of liberal voters in dark blue Houston. And Matt Bevin, a conservative who stood by Kim Davis, became only the second Republican Governor of the Bluegrass State in the last four decades.
Yet, no takedown of a fake HERO would be possible without real heroes. One of those real heroes in Houston, who fought against the certifiable insanity that lesbian Mayor Annise Parker tried to perpetrate on citizens she’s charged with protecting, was former Rice University and former Houston Astro star Lance Berkman who was considered by many --rightly or wrongly-- to be the “face” of the anti-HERO effort.
But what Berkman hasn’t spoken about, till now, was the backlash that he received for fighting the radical LGBT agenda. Chiefly, the backlash he received from radical LGBT Mayor Annise Parker.
As reported on in the Houston Chronicle, Berkman opened up about some of the slings and arrows thrown at him to Houston-based talk radio host Michael Berry. Specifically, the angry tweets and Facebook postings that Mayor Parker directed at him after his anti-HERO commercial aired:
“A lot of the comments were not in favor of letting the HERO ordinance pass, which was a little encouraging,” Berkman told Berry.
Berkman said that he never wavered in his stance because the persecution was digital.
“I didn’t expect the mayor to make a personal attack,” he said. “I didn’t expect her to talk about my girls or my family.”
He did say there were good things about the ordinance but that it was driven by an LGBT agenda he disagrees with.
“I’m against depriving anybody of their civil rights but by the same token the ordinance was so poorly-written,” Berkman said.
Berry told Berkman that the former slugger had nothing to gain by being so public about his beliefs.
“First of all as a Christian I felt that I had an obligation to stand for what is right,” Berkman said. “I am about articulating my belief system and taking a stand for it when I have the opportunity.”
He noted that he didn’t mind risking any future opportunities due to his beliefs. A few people did tell him to be careful who he challenged but that didn’t seem to bother him.
“What’s become a shame is that it seems like anybody who has an opinion that comes more from right immediately gets castigated, called a bigot, by voicing that opinion,” Berkman said.
The entire interview with Berkman can be listened to here. But you get the gist. Berkman is one of those rare breeds who prioritizes faith and doing what he believes is right, even at the expense of what it could do to his reputation, as opposed to simply sitting back and toeing the PC line.
He also crystallizes exactly the problem faced by conservative celebrities who would normally speak out, but don’t. The fear of being “castigated” and called a racist and a bigot by a media, and in this case a politician with a radical agenda, who doesn’t believe that traditional values and common sense and especially those who fight for those ideals should have any right to throw sand in the gears of their machine of societal destruction.
Maybe now that Berkman has shown the way, other conservative celebrities will follow? We can only hope.
