Texas anti-LGBT crusader won local election by pretending to be black

A Houston electrician known mostly for his personal crusades against LGBT rights and the city's lesbian mayor has won a seat on the Houston Community College Board of Trustees after pretending in campaign materials to be African American. According to Think Progress, Dave Wilson defeated longtime board member Bruce Austin -- who is African American -- by circulating campaign materials and faking an endorsement from a black state legislator.

KHOU reported that Wilson pulled stock images of people of color from websites and magazines and used them to make fliers to distribute in his district.

Wilson, a conservative white Republican with tea party leanings, realized that he had little to no chance of beating 24-year incumbent Austin in his heavily African-American district, so Wilson decided not to run as a white man. The virulently anti-LGBT activist previously ran and lost as a fringe candidate for mayor on a platform opposing marriage equality or any form of legal recognition for same sex relationships.

Wilson, who KHOU described as "a gleeful political troublemaker," sent out the fliers along with direct mailings that said, "Endorsed by Ron Wilson," a retired African-American state legislator. The fine print on the mailings explained that the Ron Wilson who endorsed Dave Wilson was actually his cousin who lives in Iowa.

Wilson beat Austin by a razor-thin margin of 27 votes. He remains untroubled by his methods, saying that all politicians lie.

"Every time a politician talks, he's out there deceiving voters," he told KHOU.

Watch video about this story, embedded below via KHOU.com: