Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry held a bill signing ceremony this week at an evangelical church school with representatives of the Family Research Council and the American Family Association. Both groups are radical right-wing organizations. The bills signed by the governor limited health care options for young women and placed a constitutional amendment before Texas voters banning same-sex marriages. Perry used the occasion to suggest that gays move out of state:

When a television reporter asked him how the proposed amendment might affect gay veterans in Texas — one of the groups protesting outside the Calvary school — Perry replied, “Texans made a decision about marriage, and if there’s a state that has more lenient views than Texas, then maybe that’s a better place for them to live.”

Perry’s outrageous comments are a gross betrayal of American values. No elected official should sugguest that an entire class of citizens move. Perry's views are also a betrayal of the Christian faith. He signed the bill in front of a crowd organized by the religious right but his actions and words were in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus who spoke of radical hospitality.

Gay Dallas lawyer Ed Ishmael called on Perry to apologize, calling the governor’s remark “outrageous.”

“I am a Texan, and I’ll not let the likes of Rick Perry tell me to leave this state,” Ishmael said in an e-mail statement.

Randall Ellis, executive director of the Texas Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby, also called on Perry to apologize.

“It is shameful that the Governor would ask a group of veterans to leave Texas,” Ellis said in a statement released Tuesday.

“Real Texans honor the sacrifice and service of all our veterans. If Rick Perry will attack those who are fighting and bleeding for our country in Iraq for his own political reasons, then who is next?”

Texas has an abundance of leaders questioning the fundamentals of democracy. Tom Delay and John Cornyn made comments this spring that seemed to both encourage and excuse violence against judges. Perry himself used rhetoric against judges when signing the bills.

"Activist judges have used the bench to advance a narrow agenda," the governor said, adding that the measure defining marriage as a sacred bond between a man and a woman "places it beyond the reach of activist judges."

Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued a statement critical of the rally. Perry’s campaign had planned to film the bill signing and sent out an e-mail stating “we want to completely fill this location with pro-family Christian friends who can celebrate with us." The only non-Christian invited was Rabbi David Stone of the Beth Yeshua Messianic Jewish Congregation in Fort Worth. The “group believes that Jesus was the Messiah, a tenet heretical to traditional Jews,” reported The New York Times.

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