Texan smeared two faiths — including his own — with pathetic vote against Ramadan honor | Opinion

Arlington Republican Rep. Tony Tinderholt ran for speaker, the top spot in the House, this year. He got smoked, 145-3.

But the race to the bottom? He may already have that one locked up.

Tinderholt was among a handful of Republican representatives to vote Wednesday against a resolution honoring the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and the first fast-breaking dinner scheduled for the Capitol in association with the holiday. He was the only one to go out of his way to put on the record why he did it — and in the unmistakable language of religious bigotry.

“Today, I voted against a resolution made in celebration of Ramadan on the House floor. As a combat veteran, I served beside many local translators who were Muslims and good people,” Tinderholt said in a statement he had included in the House Journal and later repeated on Twitter. “I can also attest that Ramadan was routinely the most violent period during every deployment. Texas and America were founded on Christian principles and my faith as a Christian prevents me from celebrating Ramadan.”

It’s quite a trifecta: blaming an entire religion for wartime violence, shutting out any constituents who don’t share Tinderholt’s faith and diminishing Christianity’s ability to co-exist with other religions.

All that over one of hundreds of resolutions the House will vote on with little or no controversy. They don’t amount to endorsing a religion, or a winning sports team, or whatever the subject is.

Done right, they celebrate something great about our state, small or large. They bring otherwise sparring legislators together to shine the spotlight on their constituents. Among the other resolutions considered Wednesday were honors for Realtors, residents of Buda, Pearsall and Val Verde County.

Six other Republicans voted no on the Ramadan resolution, including Rep. Lynn Stucky, the Denton Republican whose district also includes Wise County. Unlike Tinderholt, Stucky didn’t go out of the way to make a historical record of his bigotry … er, opposition.

No, Tinderholt took the extra step to insert into the House Journal his official stance and pitiful explanation. And in so doing, he slandered an entire faith practiced by millions of loyal Americans — and bruised the view of his own faith in the process.

The fifth-term Arlington lawmaker wants you to believe that his vote represents some bold strike for Christianity. But no sensible person confuses a resolution honoring a sacred time for hundreds of thousands of fellow Texans as some betrayal of any other religion.

And, it turns out, Tinderholt’s streak of self-righteous pomposity — if real — is pretty new. He said nothing about resolutions honoring Ramadan that the House passed in 2019 and 2021, according to House Journal entries.

Perhaps his faith has deepened. Or perhaps, having lost the speaker vote so terribly and facing even greater irrelevance as a lawmaker, his only political option is to double-down among bigots who would applaud standing in the way of extending such a basic recognition to a diverse array of Texans and their interests.

Tinderholt tried to explain himself Friday to conservative radio host Mark Davis (a Star-Telegram contributor). With his usual bluster and incoherence, he first said it was the consequence of having Democrats as committee chairs.

The decades-long bipartisan tradition of including the minority party in governance of the House is a sore spot for some Republicans. The resolution’s author, Houston-area Democratic Rep. Suleman Lalani, is no committee chair. He moved for a vote on his resolution — a common step to ensure resolutions are heard in a timely manner. More than 135 of the House’s 150 members assented. (Later Wednesday, Lalani briefly presided over the House, as most members have the honor of doing at some point. That does not make him a “Democrat chair.”)

Tinderholt then told Davis that he was “done with the left trying to force us and compel us” to celebrate topics such as LGBTQ rights. It sounds like his fatigue may actually be driven by frustration over pretending to represent any constituents who aren’t like him. Perhaps the voters in House District 94 should relieve Tinderholt of this burden next time he asks for their votes.

This story was originally published March 24, 2023 at 10:10 AM.