Here is how James Talarico should respond to Paxton's "weird" attack — and in doing so, make it dangerous for Paxton to ever try that line of attack again.
In a statement to the media responding to Ken Paxton, and directly addressing every Texas voter:
"If the weirdest thing about me is that I believe transgender kids deserve to grow up safe and loved, then I think I'm doing alright. I am proud to take that one to church with me on Sunday.
But I want to speak directly to people of conscience tonight — to Christians, to Jews, to Muslims, to Hindus and Buddhists, to the spiritual and the secular alike — because what happened on that stage Tuesday wasn't politics. It was something the New Testament warned us about by name.
Jesus said, beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. He told us this would happen. He told us there would be men who would put on the costume of faith, walk into our churches, hold up our Bible for the cameras, and use the name of Jesus Christ as a weapon against the most vulnerable people among us. He told us to watch for them. And he told us exactly how to know them.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
So let's examine Ken Paxton's harvest.
He pushed to take food from three million Americans — hungry children, working families, seniors — so billionaires could pay less in taxes.
He stripped Texas women of the right to make decisions about their own bodies — and then he sued to find out which of them crossed state lines to get care anyway.
He put the lives of vulnerable trans kids at risk by depriving them of the only course of treatment that helps them — one that their doctors prescribed.
And then he came for the doctors.
He tried to throw eleven million Americans off their insurance. And it's not just eleven million strangers. It's not just women's reproductive rights. It's not just trans kids. His real target is all of you. Your mother on Medicaid. Your neighbor with diabetes. The veteran down the street waiting on a knee replacement. The woman in remission who needs her follow-ups. He came for the most vulnerable families first because he thought the rest of you wouldn't care, and he hoped that you wouldn't notice when he came for yours.
He cheers when masked agents drag parents off the street in front of their children.
And on the biggest night of his political career, he stood in front of the cameras and mocked a 14-year-old in Plano.
And now he wants to take all of this to the United States Senate — where if he is elected, he will not stop at the Texas state line. He will carry these attacks with him into the chambers where laws are written for all 349 million Americans. Every mother in every state. Every trans kid in every town. Every doctor in every hospital. Every family that thought it can't happen here. Texas is the proving ground. The country is the target.
Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me. That is the harvest. That is the tree. And I will let every Texan — of every faith and of no faith — judge for themselves what kind of tree bears fruit like that.
This is a man impeached by his own party. Whose wife sat in the Texas Senate during his impeachment trial, listening to evidence that he carried on an affair with a woman whose boyfriend he was using the powers of his office to help. A man under federal investigation for nearly ten years. A man who settled a securities fraud case while serving as the chief law enforcement officer of this state.
And from that record — that record — he stands in front of Texans and lectures them about Jesus.
That is the wolf in sheep's clothing. That is exactly what Jesus warned us about. And the people he is hurting the most are the ones who trust him — the good, faithful, decent people of this state whose love for their faith is being turned against them to make them afraid of their own neighbors.
So let me tell you what I actually believe, and why Ken Paxton finds it so threatening.
I believe transgender kids are children of God. Full stop. I believe they deserve what every other kid in Texas deserves — a family that loves them, a school that protects them, a doctor who listens to them, and a state that does not treat their existence as a campaign prop. I believe the parents raising those kids are doing some of the hardest and most loving work in this country, and they deserve our support, not our suspicion. I believe the teachers and pastors and rabbis and imams and coaches and neighbors who stand with those kids are doing exactly what every great faith asks of us — loving the ones the powerful have decided are acceptable to hate.
And I believe the women of Texas — every one of them — deserve the dignity of making their own medical decisions with their own doctors and their own God, without Ken Paxton sitting in the exam room and without his subpoenas waiting at the state line. That is not a Christian position or a secular position. That is a human position. A free country does not let an attorney general dictate what happens inside the bodies of its citizens.
The theologian Barbara Brown Taylor once wrote that the only clear line she draws anymore is this: when her religion tries to come between her and her neighbor, she chooses her neighbor. Jesus never commanded her to love her religion — he commanded her to love her neighbor.
That is the line I draw too. And you do not have to be a Christian to draw it.
Every honest tradition teaches some version of the same thing. The Torah commands us to love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. The Quran commands kindness to the orphan and the wayfarer. The Buddha taught compassion for all beings. The humanist tradition rests on the dignity of every person. The line is older than any of our churches, and it cuts through all of them.
A 12-year-old trans kid in Tyler is my neighbor. Her mother is my neighbor. Her father, terrified and trying his best, is my neighbor. The pediatrician threatened with prosecution for treating her is my neighbor. The woman in Lubbock who had to drive to New Mexico in the middle of a miscarriage is my neighbor. The OB-GYN who left Texas because she was tired of waiting for a patient to be sick enough to legally treat is my neighbor.
Ken Paxton can call all of that "weird". I call it the oldest commandment we have.
And every Texan watching tonight should understand what is happening here, because this is the oldest trick in the book. Find the smallest, most vulnerable group you can, point at them, and dare the rest of us to look away from everything else.
While Ken Paxton was on that stage calling a state representative weird, the administration he just pledged his loyalty to is gutting Medicaid for families in Lubbock and McAllen, sending masked agents into Texas neighborhoods, threatening Social Security for the seniors who raised us, and turning the Justice Department into a personal grievance machine.
Grocery prices are up. Insurance is up. Property taxes are up. And Ken Paxton's answer is to point at a scared kid and yell "weird".
There is a passage in Matthew that ought to give every politician in this country pause, whether they read it as scripture or as warning. Jesus says that on the last day, many will come to him and say, Lord, Lord, did we not do all these things in your name? And he will look at them and answer, I never knew you. Away from me.
That verse was not written about people who don't believe. It was written about people who use his name while doing the opposite of what he taught. Ken Paxton can decide for himself whether it applies to him.
I believe Texans already have.
He told you Tuesday night exactly who he wants to represent. He wants to represent Donald Trump. He said so. He meant it. He spent his entire runoff proving it.
I want to represent you.
The teacher in Killeen. The veteran in Clarksville. The mother in El Paso trying to keep insulin in the fridge. The woman in Lubbock who deserves her doctor's judgment, not her attorney general's. The trans kid in Tyler who just wants to make it to homeroom without being a political football. The pastors and rabbis and imams tired of watching faith turned into a weapon against children. The grandparent in Houston who just wants the lights to stay on. The neighbor of no particular religion at all who just wants this state to be a little kinder than it was yesterday.
And if my opponent wants to keep calling that "weird" between now and November, he should. He should say it every single day. Because every time he does, I am going to ask Texans to look again at his harvest — the impeachment, the affair, the fraud, the cruelty, the wolf in the pulpit — and ask them to decide for themselves which one of us they would rather send to Washington.
And none of that is remotely "weird". That's Texas."
