LGBT acceptance and discrimination vary throughout the Houston energy industry. Around the 1990s BP, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, and several other companies offered benefits and protection to LGBT employees equal to that of straight employees. According to Blum many LGBT-identifying persons told him that several companies have cultures non-supportive of LGBT-identifying persons and that some had "described thinly veiled or blatant discrimination." Blum stated that "In many ways, the energy sector mirrors Houston's dual identities - the diverse, innovative, big-business urban image clashing with a conservative culture, deeply rooted in Christian faith." Institutions The Montrose Center is an LGBT community center located in the Montrose district of Houston. The center in 2019 began the establishment of a senior center in the Third Ward. Politics and activism Michael Ennis of the Texas Monthly stated in 1980 that within Texas, "gay political inroads" were "most visible" in Houston. In the October 1979 Village Voice Richard Goldstein wrote that due to the perceived threat from the "Christian right" in the area, gay people in Houston "take politics more seriously" than those in New York City. The Marriage of Billie Ert and Antonio Molina, the first gay marriage in Texas, took place in 1972, although it was later voided by the Texas Attorney General. In 1978, Steve Shifflet, a former Young Republican, became the head of the Houston Gay Political Caucus (HGPC). He advocated for using bloc-voting so gay people could get their preferred candidates. That year, the LGBT bloc-voted to put Mickey Leland in the Congressional seat formerly held by Barbara Jordan, and Leland personally thanked the HGPC. In 1979, Montrose became included in a single-member Houston City Council district and therefore increasing LGBT political representation. In 1980, Montrose was in Texas Legislative District 79. That year, Ennis stated that according to "[l]ocal politicians" the district "will now go the way the gay vote goes." In the fall 1979 election for Houston City Council, Eleanor Tinsley, a liberal, and Frank Mann, a conservative, competed for an at-large city council district. Tinsley attracted LGBT voters while Mann referred to them as "oddwads and queers" as a way of polarizing those opposing the LGBT community into voting for him. Due to the support of the LGBT community, Tinsley defeated Mann. In 2002, voters in the City of Houston had passed Proposition 2, which outlawed the city government from giving same-sex partners of municipal employees benefits.