A grassroots organization advocating citizen engagement will be allowed to host a conference at a city-owned venue in Fort Worth after officials reversed a previous decision to back out following backlash from left-leaning media.
True Texas Project planned to host its “15th Birthday Party” conference at Fort Worth Botanic Garden on July 12. However, the venue management and at least three scheduled speakers backed out after The Texas Tribune appeared to criticize the conference’s discussions on “Christian nationalism” and “Great Replacement Theory.”
In a letter obtained by The Dallas Express, Fort Worth City Attorney Leann D. Guzman informed a lawyer representing True Texas Project that city officials were overruling the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT), which manages the garden and was the entity that purportedly barred the group from holding its event.
“In accordance with the Management Agreement between the City and BRIT, the City has notified BRIT that it must immediately reverse the cancellation of your client’s event and reinstate the reservation,” Guzman wrote.
Julie McCarty is the CEO of True Texas Project, an organization that aims to “educate and motivate citizen engagement in all levels of government.” She said her group is exploring legal options against the City of Fort Worth, which owns the Fort Worth Botanic Garden property. The Botanical Research Institute of Texas manages the venue.
“The True Texas Project does exactly this: we teach people to fight back. While most groups cower, our True Texas Army went to work getting this fixed. I appreciate the extremely prompt decision of the Fort Worth City Council. The citizens won against the second-rate antifa journalist at the Texas Tribune today!” McCarty told The Dallas Express in a written statement.
The move to back out of hosting the event was the second time in as many months in Fort Worth that authorities in the city refused to facilitate a grassroots Republican event. The Fort Worth Park and Recreation Department canceled an event in May sponsored by Latinos United for Conservative Action. The event was supposed to be held on city property. It was titled “The Danger of Transgenderism” and set to feature a speech from Abel Garcia, an individual who used to identify as transgender, on his experience “detransitioning.”
In discussing the conference with The Dallas Express just a few hours before the City of Fort Worth reversed its decision, McCarty said one of the conference’s goals was to educate attendees about common criticisms from left-wing activists who equate right-leaning causes to championing racism and “Christian nationalism.”
“I really don’t know much about Christian nationalism and what it means,” McCarty told The Dallas Express. “I cannot define it, and I cannot defend it… yet. That’s the whole point of the conference.”
Stephen Wolfe, author of The Case for Christian Nationalism, is scheduled to present on the topic, which he sees as a continuation of the founding fathers’ beliefs.
“Despite modern attempts to whitewash our own history, it is a fact that America’s early years were marked by a robust English Protestant cultural and political order,” the conference description of Wolfe’s session reads. “This order was gradually replaced by a philosophy of secular liberalism, which pretended to impose a values-neutral public sphere where policies are determined by reason and social science.”
According to the Texas Tribune, three speakers canceled their plans to attend the conference: former Texas senator Don Huffines, Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, and Ammon Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
“Fear and courage are both contagious,” McCarty told The Dallas Express. “It takes one person to start the ball rolling because fear is contagious. A total of three speakers out of 12 showed their weakness. That’s not actually very many, and they are easily being replaced.”
McCarty dismissed criticisms of the event’s session on “Great Replacement Theory,” which she said is being falsely tied to white nationalism but is instead really about concern over the rapid flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.
“The presentation on Great Replacement Theory examines the conversations around the issue, including the wrong and immoral views of white supremacists, while also focusing on the robust and institutionalized racist and partisan views of the left with regard to immigration and border security,” she told The Dallas Express. “Our border and immigration policies should be color-blind and based on what are in the best interests of U.S. citizens.”
Other topics set to be discussed at the conference include the importance of border security, the dangers of legalized gambling, defining Christian Zionism, and the failures of neoconservatism.