Posted on 07/16/2002 2:04:12 PM PDT by janbrownhou
Attorney General Candidates Keep Mum On Issue Posted: 2:32 p.m. CDT July 16, 2002 Updated: 2:44 p.m. CDT July 16, 2002
HOUSTON -- In an effort to get the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of Texas' antisodomy law, a homosexual rights group Tuesday took the case of two men arrested under the statute to Washington. Lambda Legal, which represents the two Houston-area men arrested in 1998 for having sex in an apartment, formally asked the high court to reverse Texas courts' upholding of their misdemeanor conviction.
Gotta be carefull making comparisons like this. Would not be out of line as Texas has the second largest population. Not exactly fair to compare Texas and Rhode Island or Idaho.
Lol............a real Bummer if they're not.
Not exactly. It was not sex in an apartment that was the problem. Don't just sit there on your apartment, help with the dishes, Bruce.
Group takes Houston sodomy case to Supreme Court 07/16/2002Associated Press
HOUSTON - In an effort to get the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of Texas' anti-sodomy law, a homosexual rights group Tuesday took the case of two men arrested under the statute to Washington.
Lambda Legal, which represents the two Houston-area men arrested in 1998 for having sex in an apartment, formally asked the high court to reverse Texas courts' upholding of their misdemeanor conviction.
"This law harms all people who believe that their homes should be protected from governmental intrusion," said Lee Taft, director of Lambda Legal's regional office. "In particular, it brands lesbian and gay Texans as second-class citizens and is used to justify all kinds of discrimination."
Only Texas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma expressly prohibit homosexual acts, though the crime is equivalent in severity to a traffic ticket.
Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said Tuesday he wants the state attorney general's office to defend the statute before the Supreme Court.
"I think the law is constitutional on its face," Rosenthal said. "The better place to resolve the issue would be in the Legislature that convenes in January."
The offices of Attorney General John Cornyn, a Republican seeking a U.S. Senate seat, and the candidates from the two major parties vying for his current job did not immediately comment on the issue.
The case began when sheriff's deputies, responding to a false report of an armed intruder, went into John Lawrence's apartment unit Sept. 17, 1998, and discovered him having sex with Tyron Garner. Both spent the night in the Harris County Jail and were released the next day.
Lawrence and Garner pleaded no contest and were fined $200 each. The sodomy law was a felony until 1974, when it was reduced to a misdemeanor that today carries a maximum $500 fine.
They won a brief victory when a state appeals court panel overturned the convictions and ruled the law unconstitutional. However, the full court reversed the ruling and affirmed the convictions and the law.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, refused to hear the case, making the Supreme Court the next and final possible step.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state sodomy laws in 1986 in Bowers vs. Hardwick, a case Taft said his organization wants the current justices to reconsider.
"It is an opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to review the atrocity of its ruling in Hardwick, and it is an opportunity for that court to think through issues of privacy and equal protection," Taft said.
The officers were called to the scene by a neighbor who cited an assault going on next door. Police find the door to the residence unlocked and happen to come in on 2 men performing a sexual act. The officers on the scene are aware enough to charge the men with the commission of this sexual act in their residence (generally it is applied to sex acts performed in public areas such as parks and restrooms).
The homosexual activists have not made any public attempts to get the law changed through the legislature although they have tried to codify unmarried same sex partner health benefits.
I've never understood how the public schools could teach about homosexuality, cities could fund benefits for homosexual staffers' lovers, etc. while the very acts are illegal. Seems to me that they are fostering a society of scoflaws.
The silence lasted MINUTES, I'm told. . .
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