Quote Originally Posted by Catwoman View Post
so, what you're saying is, if we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist? That gay people are perfectly happy, or should be, in the closet? I guess your friends have learned to just shut up and sit down when dining, and socializing with their "good friends".


Actually what I'm saying Peggy is, stop making an issue where there is none.
I beg to differ. I think it is indeed an issue, more correctly a civil rights issue. Why should a group of people be discriminated against simply because of their sexual orientation? Why should a gay couple not be guaranteed the same rights as a hetero couple? Why should the government be allowed on a state by state basis to decide who is decent and who is not, who is entitled to spousal benefits and who is not? Why, just why?

This is where we stand in Texas.


Wed Apr. 13, 2011 12:01 AM PDT

Eight years after the Supreme Court deemed Texas' anti-sodomy statute unconstitutional, the state's penal code still lists "homosexual conduct" as a criminal offense—and Republican lawmakers are fighting to keep it that way.

A pair of identical bills that have been introduced in the Texas House would delete language from the state penal code making "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex" a misdemeanor offense. Under the proposals, a clause in the state's health and safety code that cites the criminal statute and states that homosexuality is "not an acceptable lifestyle" would also be repealed.

In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that the state's enforcement of the "homosexual conduct" provision was unconstitutional. In that case, two men were arrested for having sex in their bedroom, after a neighbor phoned in a phony weapons complaint. Texas, which at the time was one of 14 states with anti-sodomy laws on the books, has noted the Lawrence decision in its online penal code, but it takes a full act of the legislature to repeal a law.

"By removing it from the statute, it says Texas is both literally and figuratively complying with the law and making that known to its citizens," says Coleman. "This is a legal issue, not a social issue. It would be like still having on the books that an African-American couldn't marry an Anglo."

Peace