Key Locke backers gave to anti-gay group

If Annise Parker is a radical liberal, it would be enough to get my vote.

It is time to throw all conservative politicians out of office across the country regardless of political party affiliations. It is time for real change.

The two party system and the electoral college system are broken.

By BRADLEY OLSON Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle Dec. 7, 2009, 9:41PM The finance chairman and a finance committee member of Gene Locke's mayoral campaign helped bankroll the conservative political action committee that sent out an anti-gay mailer targeting City Controller Annise Parker and other municipal candidates earlier this month, according to Texas Ethics Commission documents. The revelation immediately drew accusations of illegal coordination from the campaign of Parker, whom the mailer urged voters not to choose because she was endorsed by the “gay and lesbian political caucus.” Parker is openly gay. The Locke team denied the coordination charge and shot back with allegations of its own, saying Parker's campaign helped pay for a political mail piece sent by Harris County Board of Education Trustee Roy Morales, who lost in the general election but garnered a surprising 20 percent of the vote. A campaign spokeswoman asserted that Morales demanded exhorbitant payments to include Locke's answers to questions Morales posed in the mail piece and cut him out of it when the campaign refused. The dueling assertions underscore the closeness of the mayoral contest in the race's final days and the extent to which each candidate is seeking the support of conservatives, the largest bloc of voters believed still in play. Locke has been dogged by Parker, her supporters and some uncommitted Democrats for seeking the endorsement of conservative activist Steven Hotze, who has a long history of opposing gay candidates and causes. A mail piece Hotze sent out last week urged voters not to choose Parker and several others seeking municipal offices because they were “endorsed by gay lesbian political action committee,” a reference to Houston's Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Political Caucus. It labeled others as “radical liberals” and supported some candidates based on a record of fiscal conservatism....

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