Ted Cruz In Favor of Texas Making Gay Sex Legal
Share
Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz is in favor of making gay sex legal in Texas.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz says Texas should repeal a decades-old state law that criminalizes gay sex.
“Consenting adults should be able to do what they wish in their private sexual activity, and government has no business in their bedrooms,” Cruz’s spokesman told The Dallas Morning News.
His remarks make Cruz the most prominent Texas Republican to call for the repeal of one of the state’s longstanding anti-LGBT laws.
State lawmakers in Texas banned “homosexual conduct” nearly 50 years ago. Known colloquially as the “sodomy ban,” the law has been unenforceable since the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 2003. But it has remained on the lawbooks despite Democrats’ repeated efforts to repeal it.
Now, the long-defunct law has been thrust back into the headlines in the wake of the high court’s recent decision to overturn the Constitutional right to abortion under Roe vs. Wade. In that decision, Justice Clarence Thomas urged the court to reconsider two other rulings upholding LGBT rights — including the one striking down Texas’ sodomy ban.
In light of this renewed debate, The News asked the state’s top statewide elected officials whether they believe the sodomy law should be repealed. Cruz was the only one to comment.
The junior senator is not considered an ally of the LGBT community. In fact, last week he said the Supreme Court was “clearly wrongly” to legalize same-sex marriage. But Cruz’s stance shows that, even among some in the far right, criminalizing consensual gay sex goes too far.
LGBT activists say his support is little more than lip service when considering the mountain of attacks lesbian, gay, bisexual and, especially, transgender Texans are currently weathering.
“While we welcome bipartisan support to repeal an antiquated and harmful law, we must ensure that the same government overreach is not replicated with trans health care today,” said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of the LGBT rights group Equality Texas.
PHOTO: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, shown here at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Washington. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion under Roe vs. Wade, which put a number of LGBT rights rulings in jeopardy, Cruz says he supports state lawmakers repealing Texas’ long defunct law criminalizing gay sexual intercourse. (Tom Williams/Pool photo via AP)(Tom Williams / ASSOCIATED PRESS)
