The Election of a Lesbian Mayor in a Religiously Conservative City: The Case of Houston, Texas

The American South in general remains a pocket of predominantly conservative Baptist and Evangelical Christian hegemony. Metropolitan areas display more diversity and pluralism as a result of foreign and domestic migration into the region, changes in religious affiliation, an increasing population choosing no religious affiliation, and the growing influence of popular culture on religious participation. These forces act within a paradigm of neosecularization in which personal conscience exerts more influence than religious authority. Houston, Texas, within the context of the South, serves as the case study that demonstrates the temporal and spatial changes to Houston’s religious and political landscape and the manner in which these changes influence voter behavior. In 2009, Houston, home to a large, active Christian community, became the first major U.S. city to elect an openly homosexual mayor. The changes in Houston’s religious landscape, changes in attitudes toward gays and lesbians, and the varying degrees of voter participation among religious groups across the city illustrate the unpredictability of religion as an influence on voter behavior in local elections

Post-curing conversion kinetics as functions of the irradiation time and increment thickness

Objective: This study evaluated the variation of conversion degree (DC) in the 12 hours following initial photoactivation of a low-shrinkage composite resin (Venus Diamond). Material and Methods: The conversion degree was monitored for 12 hours using Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) F-TIR Spectroscopy. The composite was placed in 1 or 2 mm rings and cured for 10 or 20 seconds with a LED lamp. ATR spectra were acquired from the bottom surface of each sample immediately after the initial photoactivation (P=0), 30 minutes (P=0.5) and 12 hours after photoactivation (P=12) in order to obtain the DC progression during the post-curing period. Interactions between thickness (T), irradiation time (I) and post-curing (P) on the DC were calculated through ANOVA testing. Results: All the first order interactions were statistically significant, with the exception of the T-P interaction. Furthermore, the shift from P=0 to P=0.5 had a statistically higher influence than the shift from P=0.5 to P=12. The post-curing period played a fundamental role in reaching higher DC values with the low-shrinkage composite resin tested in this study. Moreover, both the irradiation time and the composite thickness strongly influenced the DC. Conclusions: Increased irradiation time may be useful in obtaining a high conversion degree (DC) with a low-shrinkage nano-hybrid composite resin, particularly with 2 mm composite layer