From God Save Texas (Lawrence Wright, 2018) pp262-5
ONE OF THE MOTIVE FORCES behind the bathroom bill, and a major supporter of Dan Patrick, is Dr. Steven Hotze, a Houston physician and longtime ultraconservative kingmaker. Starting in the 1990s, he made a fortune from alternative hormone replacement therapies and the sale of controversial supplements, such as colloidal silver, which Dr. Hotze recommends for colds, flu, “and even pet health.” Colloidal silver can cause argyria, a condition in which a patient’s skin permanently turns the color of a blue jay.
Hotze is affiliated with an evangelical Christian group called the Coalition on Revival. He signed their manifesto in 1986, which endorses the idea that “the ultimate cause of all disease, deformity, disability, and death is the sin of Adam and Eve.” As for government: “We deny that any final authority outside the Bible (e.g., reason, experience, majority opinion, elite opinion, nature, etc.) ought to be accepted as the standard of government for any individual, group, or jurisdiction.”
Hotze has hosted a show on the talk-radio station that Patrick now owns in Houston. He has even released a couple of songs-or perhaps they should be called lamentations-such as “God Fearing Texans Stop Obamacare”:
What would Sam Houston do? What would Davy Crockett do? I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to fight Obamacare, I’m going to defeat Obamacare.
Hotze’s main cause is attacking homosexuals, or “homofascists,” as he calls them. “The homosexual political movement will force churches, schools, businesses, and individuals to accept, to affirm, and even celebrate those who participate in anal sex,” he has said. Sodomy, he went on, “will be mandated to be taught to children in the schools at an early age, starting in kindergarten.” It goes without saying that homosexuals “want to make Texas a clone of California.”
“He is the LeBron James of hating on gays,” Evan Smith, the CEO of the Texas Tribune, told me. “He’s the MVP every year. There is no close second.”
In 2014, when Dan Patrick first ran for lieutenant governor, Hotze became one of his chief fundraisers, In a video endorsement, he stands next to Patrick and says, “Dan Patrick’s leadership will keep Texas the most conservative state in the country.”
In the video, Patrick makes it clear what the stakes are in his election. “The Democrats understand that if they can take Texas, they’ll never have a Republican in the White House again,” he says. “They will control the country. There’s not another Texas to move to, folks. This is it.”
In 2015, Hotze became involved in defeating an antidiscrimination ordinance in Houston that was championed by the city’s lesbian mayor, Annise Parker. Hotze passed out bumper stickers saying “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms,” the same formulation that Patrick and his colleagues would apply to S.B. 6, which they styled “The Women’s Privacy Act.”
Hotze runs a political action committee called Conservative Republicans of Texas, and he maintains that group’s website. “There are Texas legislators,” Hotze wrote on the site in May 2017, “who would allow perverted men and boys, who sexually fantasize that they are women, to enter women’s and girls’ bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms.” He implored his readers to pray with him:
In the name of Jesus, I prophesy and declare: May all the individuals serving in the state Legislature, and their staff, who support, promote and practice sodomy and other perverted, sexually deviant lifestyles, who support the killing of unborn babies, and who hate God’s Law and God’s Word, receive just retribution from God for their evil actions … May they be consumed, collapse, rot and be blown away as dust from their current positions because of their wicked works, thoughts and deeds. May people scorn them and nations abhor them. May their punishment lead them to repentance and faith in Christ. May God’s will be done in their lives.
In an email to me, Patrick’s office described Hotze as a “longtime supporter,” but added, “The Lieutenant Governor does not agree with everything that any of his supporters say or do.” Straus told me, “Steve Hotze exists on the fringes. Mainstream Republicans don’t take him seriously.” Meanwhile, Hotze was campaigning to have Straus removed as Speaker.
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IN THE MIDDLE of all this political chaos, Tom Mechler, chairman of the state Republican Party, resigned. He issued a letter pleading for unity and civility. “A party that is fractured by anger and backbiting is a party that will not succeed,” he wrote in his resignation note. He also warned that Republicans had failed to attract voters beyond the shrinking Anglo electorate, and was destined for electoral extinction. “If we do not continue to make efforts to engage in the diverse communities across Texas, our state will turn blue,” he warned. He urged that the next chairman reshape the party in the image of modern Texas. Soon after Mechler’s resignation, Rob Morrow – the former Travis County GOP chairman, with the motley fool hat – announced his candidacy for the statewide position. His priorities had not changed since he was drummed out of the county office: “I like big titties. I am a proponent of boobyliciousness. In the past several years I have shared on social media the pics of over 500 extremely hot, busty women.” He concluded by saying, ‘I am for having bikini contests at the Alamo every 4th of July. Case closed.”
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