Texas Fails To Repeal Law Criminalizing Homosexuality

The Texas Tribune reports:

A promising Democratic push to repeal Texas’ defunct ban on gay sex has fizzled after the lower chamber ran out of time to consider House Bill 2055 on Thursday. In June 2003, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas struck down the state’s criminalization of gay sex. Sessions after sessions since then, Texas Democrats have attempted to repeal this unconstitutional ban.

But by the end of Thursday, the deadline for House bills to receive their first vote on the floor, the lower chamber ran out of time to consider HB 2055. “I’m very proud that this bill has made it to the House floor,” state Rep. Venton Jones, the bill’s author, told The Texas Tribune on Thursday. The Dallas Democrat is one of the first members of the Texas Legislature who are Black and openly gay.

Read the full article.

Photo: Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan.

Clarence Thomas dissented in Lawrence v. Texas and last year suggested that the Supreme Court should revisit both Lawrence and Obergefell.

In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas’ law banning sodomy in 2003. It took almost 20 years for Democrats to get a bill to repeal the defunct ban on the House calendar. https://t.co/v8Zx4VqRwn

— KSAT 12 (@ksatnews) May 12, 2023