In A California Speech, Rick Perry Compares Homosexuality With Alcoholism

Five stories that have North Texas talking: A house is falling into Lake Whitney; remembering choreographer Bruce Wood; Willie Nelson appears on QVC; and more.

During a California visit, Gov. Rick Perry compared homosexuality with alcoholism. Perry was asked whether he thinks homosexuality is a disorder, The San Francisco Chroniclereports. "Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that," Perry said. "I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way." Perry spoke Wednesday at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. During his appearance, he was asked about the Texas Republican Party’s decision last week to endorse counseling aimed at making gay people straight. Reparative therapy, also called conversion therapy, has been banned for minors in California and New Jersey. The American Psychiatric Association opposesreparative or conversion therapy. Perry told the crowd he didn’t know whether the therapy works. Video from KPIX-TV, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco, shows part of his remarks:

• A vacant luxury house is on the verge of tumbling 75 feet into a Hill County lake because a cliff is collapsing beneath the property. WFAA-TV reports that the 4,000 square-foot-home above Lake Whitney has been condemned and the owners evacuated about two weeks ago. Hill County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Mark Wilson says another chunk of cliff broke off Tuesday night. Soil and other debris have been falling from beneath the home at White Bluff Resort, some 60 miles south of Fort Worth. Tax records show the house was built in 2007 and is worth more than $700,000. [The Associated Press]

• A UT-Arlington student reporter who’s a Muslim says she encountered a hostile audience at the Texas Republican Convention. Heba Said, who wore a veil to last week’s convention in Fort Worth, wrote in The Shorthorn she felt “anger and disappointment” after encountering a “cult-like hatred.” She wrote: “People stopped in their tracks and frowned and shook their heads at me." … One attendee asked her where she was from. “When I responded, ‘Texas,’ he asked me where I was really from, as if there were no way it could possibly be from Texas.” She also says five police officers stood behind her, “hands on holsters, watching me intently.”

• Thursday and Friday’s performances of Touch will serve as a memorial service for Bruce Wood, the noted North Texas choreographer. The founder of the Bruce Wood Dance Project had been preparing Touch before he died last month. The performance starts at 8 p.m. at Dallas City Performance Hall. Read about his life on KERA’s Art&Seek. The Bruce Wood Dance Project website offers a message from Wood: “People will never forget how you make them feel. I remember this every time I make a dance, and it is probably the one thing that governs all the choices I make.”

• Willie Nelson has produced his first album of new material in nearly 20 years. NPR reviews the album: “Nelson's gentle persona and approach has always somewhat masked his fire: to have hits; to play his legendarily worn guitar, Trigger, with killer precision; and to sing, in that quiet voice, with skill that matches the jazz greats who've inspired him. On Band of Brothers … he calmly asks listeners to consider his whole person.” He’s scheduled to perform some of the songs from his new album on QVC at 7 p.m. Thursday.