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Steers Only Please - Criminalize The Queers In Texas

Texas Republicans are a conservative lot. Still, it's difficult to imagine mainstream GOP voters demanding their neighbors be jailed for engaging in a little hanky-panky behind closed doors. Nevertheless, the state's Republican party has voted on a platform [PDF link] by which their candidates will stand, and it includes the reinstatement of laws banning sodomy: otherwise known as oral and anal sex. The party's platform also seeks to make gay marriage a felony offense, which may be confusing to most given that the state does not sanction or recognize same sex marriages, meaning any such ceremony conducted does not bear the weight of law. Whether this means the GOP wants gay couples married in other states to be pursued through Texas as dangerous criminals, the party did not specify.

"We oppose the legalization of sodomy," the platform states. "We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy."

Texas first passed an anti-sodomy law in 1860, setting the penalty at 5-15 years in jail. The ban was finally overturned in 2003 by the landmark Supreme Court decision Lawrence et al. v. Texas. The court found that two men arrested in their own home by Houston police, who charged them with engaging in sodomy, were not committing a crime. Indeed, the court said the men were "free as adults to engage in private conduct in the exercise of their liberty..." To the contrary, the Texas GOP platform goes even further in attacking homosexuals, adding:

We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.

In addition to this, the Texas GOP seeks to end the state's lottery, which provides millions in funding to public education; restrict citizenship to children born in the United States whose parents are citizens; end federal sponsorship of pre-kindergarten schools; impose a jail sentence on any illegal immigrant in the state; shut down all day-labor centers; cut off all bilingual education after a student's fourth year in a U.S. public school; legalize corporal punishment in public schools; mandate that evolution and global warming be "taught as challengeable scientific theory"; and demand that Congress evict the United Nations from U.S. soil and end American membership in the global body. In spite of this, Texas Governor Rick Perry went out of his way to extol the virtues of Mexican-Americans and at one point even filled his convention stage with dozens of minorities, essentially using them as props to promote Republican tolerance.

"None of that stopped the convention from adopting a platform full of messages guaranteed to turn off big segments of the Latino vote," News 8 Austin noted. "Meanwhile, the shrillest of anti-illegal immigrant messages could be found in the vendor booths next door. One popular booth proudly displayed pictures of terrified Mexican women and children apparently rounded up, trying to enter the country illegally."

"Hispanics will make up 78 percent of Texas' population growth over the next 30 years, compared with only 4 percent for whites, according to demographic projections," The Houston Chronicle reported in a story examining the GOP's platform. "Minority children already make up 66 percent of the state's 4.8 million public school enrollment — and Hispanics could surpass whites in the state's overall population by 2015, estimates show. "Not one of the state's 181 legislators is a Hispanic Republican.""

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Mr. Justice Homophobe

Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank called Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia a "homophobe" in a recent interview with the gay news Web site 365gay.com. The Democratic lawmaker, who is gay, was discussing gay marriage and his expectation that the high court would some day be called upon to decide whether the Constitution allows the federal government to deny recognition to same-sex marriages.

"I wouldn't want it to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court," said Frank. The video of the interview is available online.

Attempts to obtain a comment from Frank were not immediately successful Monday. Scalia had no comment. Scalia dissented from the court's ruling in 2003 that struck down state laws banning consensual sodomy. He has complained about judges, rather than elected officials, deciding questions of morality about which the Constitution is silent. Controversial topics like gay rights and abortion should not be in the hands of judges, he has said, calling on people to persuade their legislatures or amend the Constitution.

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Sex Assualt By NYPD

Man claims sexual assault by NYC cops

(New York City) Prosecutors are investigating allegations that five New York City police officers attacked a tattoo parlor worker and sodomized him with a walkie-talkie in a subway station. The 24-year-old man says the officers then wrote him a disorderly conduct ticket and abandoned him as he was writhing in pain. The police department disputes the allegations and strongly denies the man was sodomized. “Police officers grappled with an individual who they observed smoking marijuana after he had fled and resisted being handcuffed. His assertion that he was sodomized is not supported by independent civilian witnesses on the scene,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said in a statement. The case is being investigated by the police department and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. The accusations brought back memories of the 1997 assault of Abner Louima, who was beaten and sodomized with a broomstick in a police precinct by officers in one of the most notorious cases of police brutality in NYPD history. In the latest case, lawyers for the accuser came forward Thursday afternoon with the startling allegations, and a hospital confirmed that he was admitted on the day of the alleged attack and spent four days there. The man was back in the hospital on Thursday, complaining he was urinating blood and suffering lingering pain, the Daily News reported.

Lawyers say five police officers approached Michael Mineo on Oct. 15 around 12:30 p.m. because they believed he was smoking marijuana near a subway stop in Brooklyn. When the tattoo parlor employee entered the station, he claims officers jumped him from behind, handcuffed him and wrestled him to the ground, according to attorney Stephen Jackson. Mineo told his lawyers that he felt a foot on his neck as the officers beat him, then yanked down his pants and sodomized him with the walkie-talkie. The lawyers say the officers took the bleeding Mineo into a police car, wrote him a disorderly conduct ticket and left him at the subway station. “My God, this just sent chills throughout my body when I heard this,” Jackson said. “This is one of the most horrendous acts of police brutality.” One of Mineo’s co-workers took him to the hospital, where he remained most of the week with internal injuries. His attorney says the hospital administrator contacted the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office because it appeared Mineo was the victim of a sexual assault. Jackson said medical records corroborate Mineo’s story, but would not immediately provide copies of them. Mineo was not available to speak. Brookdale Hospital officials confirmed that he was admitted on Oct. 15 and discharged four days later. Jackson said he and Mineo didn’t go public with the allegations right away because they wanted to give prosecutors time to investigate. A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said many initial details about the incident cast doubt on Mineo’s claims. For instance, the official said Mineo initially yelled at the scene that he had been shocked with a stun-gun by the officers, but none of the officers was carrying the weapon. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office says it doesn’t comment on any open investigations. Mineo was previously arrested in June on a charge of gang assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

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2 Men Charged with Sodomy in N.C.

By: Mark Kernes   RALEIGH, N.C. – It's been only five years since the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized consensual sodomy between adults, but apparently, police in West Raleigh, N.C., haven't yet been made aware of the ruling. It all started when Nelson Sloan called 911 in the early morning hours of May 24, claiming he'd been attacked in his apartment in Grand Manor Court by Ryan Flynn. After investigation, the cops charged Flynn with simple assault for biting Sloan – and with threatening to disembowel Sloan and show him his (Sloan's) innards. But they also charged both men with committing an "infamous crime against nature" – North Carolina's legal term for sodomy. This looks like a case of a consensual act that may have gotten out of hand," police Capt. T.D. Hardy told the Raleigh News & Observer. "The law is still on the books. Our detectives got involved in it last night and decided this was the best thing to do. What the D.A.'s office will do with it, I don't know." But although the Raleigh Police Department's attorney, Dawn Bryant, told officers in August 2003, two months after the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence, that they could continue charging adults who performed sodomy in public, the "crime against nature" law remains in the state's criminal code and, said Bryant, "The decision only applies to private conduct." The good news is, Wake County prosecutors dropped the sodomy charges against both men a week later, with Assistant District Attorney Adam Moyers concluding that the blowjobs and/or anal sex between the men were consensual and private. The bad news is, Sloan still had to pay $450 to a bail bondsman to get released from jail, and though he's asked for a refund, it's unlikely that he'll get it. The further bad news is, though many North Carolina district attorneys have stopped prosecuting the sodomy law, State Sen. Ellie Kinnaird (D- Carrboro) has tried for years to rescind the statute. "I press it every year," Kinnaird said shortly after the arrests. "It would be politically difficult, but that doesn't matter. It's unconstitutional." "I couldn't care less what these guys do," said Joe Furmick, the magistrate who set Sloan's bail at $3,000. "I'm with the old Victorian lady who said, 'I don't care what people do as long as they don't do it in the street and scare the horses.' But you don't want me to decide which laws to enforce and which not to. My opinion shouldn't enter into it." Apparently, the "veteran Wake County magistrate" wasn't (and perhaps isn't) aware that it's every citizen's (and certainly every judicial officer's) duty not to obey laws that are unconstitutional.