“I’d quote the Bible to the City Council and it was like you were speaking a foreign language. By the end of the meeting, he says, the pastors felt they were being ignored. “He’s a pretty persuasive guy and he’s not shy-let’s put it that way,” Field says of Brown. “It was not proper for the city to reward sexual immorality.”Īt the next City Council meeting, Field and at least 30 pastors showed up to testify against the city’s domestic partner initiative, including evangelical pastor Tom Brown. “I felt like this was something the majority of El Pasoans and God would not agree with,” he says. The group, started in 2005, prays 24-7, in shifts, for the city’s salvation. He calls himself a “city reacher” who prays for El Paso’s salvation. Field, 71, is the founder of a local Christian group called El Paso for Jesus. Retiree Barney Field heard about the new provision and alerted pastors to protest it. “But the symbolic effect was huge because it says that we are an inclusive community.” “The pragmatic effect was not very significant because it was only two people,” Ortega says. It costs the city about $34,000 annually to extend the benefits. But in the end, the proposal provided health coverage to only 19 domestic partners of city employees. They initially estimated the change would affect about 45 people. Shortly afterward, O’Rourke formally made the proposal in a budget meeting. They came up with a proposal to extend city health benefits to domestic partners. Ortega and O’Rourke went back to city hall and talked with staff about how the city could be more inclusive. The three elected officials felt it was time to send a positive message to El Paso’s gay community. “Maybe it’s because of the predominant Catholic demographic in our city, there is a discomfort about the political language around gay rights and gay issues.” “Unlike other large cities, El Paso hadn’t really had a big discourse about gay rights and gay issues,” Byrd says.
The teen’s comment stuck with the city leaders. A teen in the audience stood up and told the elected officials, “I’m gay and in love with my boyfriend, but I don’t feel like I’m welcome in El Paso.” In 2009, El Paso City Council members Susie Byrd, Steve Ortega and Beto O’Rourke visited with teenagers at a community center. Before the hate mail began rolling in from across the country, before the pastor had his church vans vandalized and manure dumped in his parking spot, before the mayor penned a protest song and before El Paso became the latest battleground over gay rights, before all of that, there was a simple plea for acceptance.