Three Steps Forward, Four Steps Backward

And now it is the lesbians and gays turn;

First they came for the trans people.
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Trans
Then they came for the Drag Queens
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Drag Queen
Then they came for the…

We are going backwards, we are moving backward toward 1950. The Republican's Wayback Machine has been set to the time of Father Knows Best, where Blacks knew their place, gays were in the closet, and no one had heard of trans people.

The pogrom against us the trans community was just the beginning, it has now spread to the rest of the LGBTQ+ community.

Texas is going to reinstate the sodomy laws so the case will go before the Supreme Court!
Texas AG says he’d defend sodomy law if Supreme Court revisits ruling
The Washington Post
By Timothy Bella
June 29, 2022<


Shortly after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) appeared to express support for Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion that the high court could review other precedents that may be deemed “demonstrably erroneous,” including those affecting the LGBTQ community.

One of the cases mentioned by Thomas was Lawrence v. Texas, which prevents states from banning intimate same-sex relationships. The landmark 2003 ruling struck down a 1973 Texas law that criminalized the act of sodomy. But as Roe was overturned, Paxton said he would defend the state’s defunct sodomy law if the Supreme Court were to follow Thomas’s remarks and eventually revisits Lawrence.

“I mean, there’s all kinds of issues here, but certainly the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don’t think there’s any constitutional provision dealing with,” Paxton said in a Friday interview with NewsNation anchor Leland Vittert. “They were legislative issues, and this is one of those issues, and there may be more. So it would depend on the issue and dependent on what state law had said at the time.”

Also from June…

Texas AG Ken Paxton 'Willing and Able' to Defend Sodomy Law
The statement is totally in keeping with Paxton's anti-LGBTQ+ record.
The Advocate
By Trudy Ring
June 30, 2022


If Texas passes a law banning same-sex intimacy, Attorney General Ken Paxton would be "willing and able" to defend it in court, he told a talk show host over the weekend, and he implied he'd challenge other hard-won rights..

Paxton's comment comes after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion when the court overturned Roe v. Wade,said the justices should revisit Lawrence v. Texas,the ruling that invalidated state antisodomy laws across the nation; Obergefell v. Hodges, which established nationwide marriage equality; and Griswold v. Connecticut, which struck down state restrictions on contraception. It would take a case coming to the high court for this to happen, but Paxton, a far-right Republican, indicated he would get one started.

"Would you, as attorney general, be comfortable defending a law that once again outlawed sodomy? That questioned Lawrence again or Griswold or gay marriage that came from the state legislature to put to the test what Justice Thomas said?" Leland Vittert, an anchor on the NewsNation cable network, asked Paxton.

"Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of issues here, but certainly, the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don't think there was any constitutional provision dealing with," Paxton replied. "They were legislative issues. And this is one of those issues. And there may be more."

And now from last week,

BEFORE ‘LAWRENCE’: FROM SODOMY TO QUEER LIBERATION
Wesley G. Phelps’ new history book reveals how gay persecution in the Lone Star State spurred the struggle for LGBTQ+ civil rights nationwide.
Texas Observer
By Kit O'Connell
February 9, 2023


On August 17, 1982, LGBTQ+ Texans celebrated “Gayteenth,” as activists called it at the time—a reference to Juneteenth, which commemorates news of slavery’s end reaching Texas. On that day in Dallas, a district court judge ruled in favor of plaintiff Don Baker in Baker v. Wade, declaring our state’s sodomy law unconstitutional. Baker, who lost his job with the Dallas Independent School District after coming out on TV, had sued the state for violating his right to privacy and equal protection under the laws.

“I want gay people in Texas to understand that this is their victory—that they should internalize this and feel good about themselves,” declared Baker, who became a figurehead of the struggle to decriminalize queer relationships.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision. The Supreme Court, which had recently ruled such laws constitutional in Bowers v. Harwick, declined to hear the case. Anti-sodomy laws in Texas and elsewhere would remain on the books and in effect until Lawrence v. Texas 21 years later. 

[…]

“While Lawrence marked a pivotal moment,” Phelps writes, “the case should be viewed as the culmination of a social and legal revolution that had been building for nearly three decades, rather than an unexpected development.”

[...]

 After multiple delays (some engineered by Wade) and years of negotiations, in 1973 the Legislature adopted a reformed penal code with far worse sodomy laws. The new version spared consenting heterosexuals, married or otherwise. Same-sex partners, meanwhile, faced a class C misdemeanor with a $200 fine for engaging in oral or anal sex. 

With the 1973 changes, for the first time Texas law singled out LGBTQ+ people as a distinct class deserving opprobrium. Phelps documents the far-reaching effects of this change, which included an increase in brutal police raids, gay bashing, and murders while also inspiring community defense patrols, fundraising for court cases, and other activism. 

And now we are going back to the 1950s!

Will we have to wear 3 pieces of male clothing again?

Will gays and lesbians be locked up for being who they are?

Remember many of the federal judges in Texas were appointed by Trump!

Remember that the Supreme Court is now the Trump Supreme Court!