Texas State Rep: Keep Our Sodomy Ban

Via the San Antonio Express:

Barely two months after a federal judge struck down Texas’ hair braiding regulations, a move to erase the unconstitutional statute already has bipartisan support. Not so for Texas’ anti-sodomy law, which remains on the books a dozen years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. “Absolutely, there is a difference,” said Rep. James White, R-Hillister, who has filed a bill to do away with the braiding statute but wants to keep a similarly illegal law that criminalizes homosexual sex. The braiding regulation, he said, “was a way of disenfranchising them out of the marketplace. I don’t necessarily think this was the case with sodomy.” White explained the discrepancy this way: Opposing homosexuality is akin to “a community coming together and having a moral standard, per se, as opposed to using the regulatory environment to disenfranchise people.” “Obviously, sodomy covers a lot of instances. It can even cover bestiality and there are a lot of public health standards and even decency standards,” he added.

Pro-LGBT Texas legislators have tried to remove the sodomy statute in every session since the US Supreme Court ruled in 2003. White has a 93% approval rating from the Eagle Forum. John Wright notes that White is wrong about bestiality, which remains perfectly legal in Texas.