I was born here. I’ve nearly always been proud of my home state. When I lived in other states, I always flew a Texas flag at my house and referred to it as the Texas Embassy. But when I leave this state, I won’t fly that flag again.
First Lawrence and now this.
118-9.
sigh I’m too disheartened to even rant.
Jeez, I thought you were going to refer to this …
Argh.
Don’t hate Texas.
Hate politicians. They generally deserve it.
And count your blessings. At least Little Tommy DeLay isn’t YOUR Congresscritter. He IS mine, and THAT is embarrassing.
Don’t the majority of voters that elected them deserve a little too?
I had to Google this to be sure it was what I thought it was. Skimming over the paragraphs, I saw that it allows Texas to disregard other state’s marriages.
What the fuck is that? Is that constitutional? I clicked out after that in disgust. Gah.
Not to be a total dickweed, Homebrew, but how much of this is actually a surprise to you? Or did I miss the non-Onion “Texas leads charge for full gay rights” article?
Big hugs.
Gonna need a little help from one of our resident legal scholars here.
Doesn’t the ‘full faith and credit’ clause of the constution bar Texas from that? I mean ‘disregard a civil contract legally entered into in another state should the parties happen to be in Texas’.
`Full Faith and Credit’ extends to all contracts made under the jurisdiction of another state, so it does apply to marriages and civil unions and so on. And it will take a lot more than a few Texans (Shrubya included) to change that.
Derleth, your statement of the law in re the Full Faith and Credit clause is entirely incorrect.
Care to enlighten?
iampunha: I had hoped it would get bottled up in committee. Or a few more than 9 legislators would vote against. It took years to get the James Byrd Hate Crimes Act passed. They passed this bill in a matter of minutes.
To quote St. Robert of Hibbing:
“And you ask why I don’t live here?
Honey, why don’t you move!”
“[T]he Full Faith and Credit Clause does not require a State to apply another State’s law in violation of its own legitimate public policy.” Nevada v. Hall, 440 U.S. 410 (1979).
Thanks minty. Does that mean that the Federal DOMA was unnecessary and just an effort to enshrine bigotry?
Homebrew------- Do the terms “Bible Belt” or “Camelite” mean anything to you. They’re the ones that vote. Remember.
That’s pretty much correct on the other-states-don’t-have-to-recognize-it part of DOMA, although it also has the nasty consequence of affirmatively preventing any federal benefits from flowing to a gay marriage (tax breaks, Socia Security survivor benefits, federal pensions, etc.). Nasty stuff, that DOMA.
Well, when you look at the returns from the Nov '02 election(PDF) and you see that the percentage of registered voters who actually voted was around 35% with another 13% voting early and you realize that the largest margin of victory for any of the At-Large candidates(page 11-12 of the election returns document) on the Court of Criminal Appeals, (who refused to hear the Gardner case) was less than 4% of the population.* It really makes you wonder if Democracy is working at all.
The First Court of Appeals, which hears cases from a fairly large number of counties and handed down the ruling which keeps the sodomy law on the books until the Supreme Court of the US makes its determination, had two seats up for grabs(page 40 of the election returns). The largest margin of victory for either of those justices(neither were incumbents, so I’m not sure the change was ineffective, but Republicans won both seats) was 145,625 votes. I’m not sure how large a pool of constitutants they actually have but it includes the city of Houston and is multi-county. The population of Houston itself is 1,953,631**. The number of total votes cast in each of the two elections was 866,549(Place 5), and 1,114,095(Place 4). The total turnout for these elections was a little more than half(57%) the population of the largest city in the area. This completely discounts other counties/cities which this district would include.
I feel safe saying that elections are NOT decided by the majority of the population. They aren’t even decided by the majority of the registered voters! They are decided by the majority of the voting population who actually VOTED, but at this point we’re in Boss Hawg territory(50% of 50% of 50%…). The majority was, as in so many things, silent during the 2002 elections in Texas. Vocal, and activist, minorities hold a large amount of sway in the US electoral systems. This is just in regards to popular elections, not to mention lobbying or other representative-swaying efforts.
Enjoy,
Steven
** 2000 Census Data re-printed by the website.
CRAP! The total votes for Place 5 on the First Court of Appeals in November '02 was 1,116,309 not 866,549(the number of votes cast on election day, not including early voting)
One of these days I’m going to learn to preview for CONTENT instead of just coding. :smack:
Enjoy,
Steven
Texas isn’t anti-gay movements, and the death penalty, and dragging deaths.
Texas is Shiner Bock, and Willie, and tubing on the Guadalupe, and being drunk in a blues bar on Sixth Street with a pretty girl.
Don’t let Los Bastardes get you down!
And Vermont is what, Ben & Jerry’s? Hell, you can get that anywhere.
BTW, it just occurred to me that if the Supreme Court strikes down the Texas sodomy law as a constitutionally impermissible gender-based classification under the Equal Protection clause, the same reasoning would imperil the DOMA provisions that deny federal benefits based on the gender of the partners. Hmmm, that could get interesting.