Much was made this week of the Texas Republican Party’s minuscule change to its platform concerning homosexuality. In a story Tuesday, The Dallas Morning News shared with readers a triumphant account of how the Texas Log Cabin Republicans pushed the party to stop saying that being gay is a choice. Thanks…
It’s only a matter of time, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, before Latinos become Texas’ biggest ethnic group. From 2010-17, the state’s total Latino population increased by about 1.4 million, from 9.7 million to 11.1 million. Over the same period, the state’s white population grew by…
As of Wednesday afternoon, Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have racked up exactly one conviction in their quest to root out voter fraud in Dallas County. Miguel Hernandez, 28, arrested in July for illegal voting, pleaded guilty to improperly returning a marked ballot,…
Alone in the kitchen over my first coffee, I finally got what the border story was about. This was before President Donald Trump backed down on separating children from their parents. I had been thinking it was about everything else. Call me a slow learner. The dog-walking helped. And the…
As President Donald Trump did his best to worm his way out of a self-inflicted crisis Wednesday afternoon, issuing an executive order that halts the separation immigrant children from their parents if the parents are arrested crossing the U.S. border, two of Dallas’ biggest companies made it clear that they…
President Donald Trump announced early Wednesday afternoon that he will end the policy of separating immigrant children from their families, initiated by the Department of Justice in April. An executive order, which the president said he would sign later in the day, will call for children and families detained trying…
Someone slashed a gay pride flag over the weekend that flew outside the Denton home shared by activists who support transgender people, immigrants and people of color. The vandal spray-painted “FAGS” on the house’s garage door. Police say that happened sometime after 11 p.m. Saturday, just hours after Deborah Armintor stepped outside…
Score this round for First Baptist Dallas. Big. Less than a week after seeing two billboards celebrating the title of pastor Robert Jeffress’ “Freedom Sunday” sermon — “America Is a Christian Nation” — taken down by New York City-based Outfront Media, the church is putting up 10 times as many…
My visit Tuesday to the great Dallas Whitewater Feature on the Trinity River confirmed an impression I have been developing for some time — a grand connecting theme in all of the architectural wonders brought to us by the city’s old guard leadership, from woodland trails to the great Margaret…
Late last week, Outfront Media took down a couple of billboards it owns in Dallas. Normally that wouldn’t be news, but the ads on these billboards belonged to First Baptist Church of Dallas and depict its pastor, Robert Jeffress, so a storm began brewing immediately. That storm struck in earnest…
The Observer had a chance Monday to talk with Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, about a recent decision by Outfront Media to take down a couple of billboards promoting his upcoming “America Is a Christian Nation” sermon. At the end of our interview with Jeffress, we asked him about…
Texas, seemingly, is headed for marijuana reform sooner than expected. The state’s Republican Party passed a platform Saturday afternoon supporting major changes in the way the state treats medical marijuana and those found in possession of less than an ounce of pot, signaling that years of harsh prohibition could be…
Here’s a hobby. Spend some time finding out how many places in the United States you can’t live. Well, places where you can’t live if you also want to eat. Then here’s a thought. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and find out hard it is for people to live and…
After being empty for nearly two years, the former Walmart Neighborhood Market on Lowest Greenville is finally being replaced. Rather than being excited about the excising of a longtime neighborhood eyesore, however, Dallas City Council member Philip Kingston and nearly 1,000 supporters have signed a petition to tell the proposed occupant,…
Former Mrs. Highland Park Dena Miller, national director of the Trumpettes of America, has a message for all her detractors on social media. “I’m a mom, tweeting from Dallas. I’m not a bot, you dumbass!” she says. Sometimes that’s hard to believe. Miller’s Twitter feed resembles something a Russian operative might…
Rather than picking off the Texas Legislature’s anti-abortion measures one at a time, as reproductive rights groups in the state have seemingly been willing to do over the last decade, a six-pack of pro-choice organizations joined with an abortion provider Thursday to sue the state over a whole slate of…
On a late September day in 2015, Inmate No. 1455104 was supposed to be standing quietly in line for a midday prison count in the women’s unit at a Gatesville prison. But Marinda Griggs, a longtime epileptic, could feel a seizure coming on and asked to go to the medical…
Like it or not, the Dallas City Council is coming to your neighborhood. After nearly an hour of scattered, often confusing debate, the council signed off a plan to hold one City Council meeting in the afternoon and evening every month. It’ll also conduct meetings in different locations throughout the…
To snatch or not to snatch? That is the question that has been keeping me awake nights. The only thing that can put me back to sleep is rereading my own stuff. A week ago, I wrote a column here about West Dallas landlord Khraish Khraish, whom two legal aid…
Before Vice President Mike Pence hit the stage Wednesday for the second day of the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas, the congregation of thousands sang a few worship songs. In one, this lyric stood out: “Yes, I shall see him, see him face to face / and tell the story…
When Dallas Cowboys right guard Zack Martin showed up at The Star in Frisco this week for the team’s first mandatory offseason mini-camp, it was in the air. After sitting out three weeks of organized team activities, the two-time All-Pro was about to get paid. Late Wednesday afternoon, the Cowboys…
The 2018 annual meeting, as the denomination’s yearly shindig is called, probably could’ve come at a better time for the Southern Baptist Convention. This week’s events at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center downtown come fresh on the heels of a series of scandals centering on Paige Patterson, the former…
