Burnt Orange Report

All the Small Things

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling this summer declaring sodomy laws to be unconstitutional, we realized how little pieces of law, even if rarely enforced, can be a big deal. They can be used as support for continuing discrimination in other legal battles and of course the death of the sodomy laws chapped a few conservative's collective arses...

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," Santorum said in the AP interview, which was published Monday."

Fast forward to a couple days ago and read the following clip from this article about students being denied the ability to start a Gay-Straight Alliance in Lubbock.

"I would have denied other clubs whose basis was sex," Jack Clemmons, who was the school superintendent in Lubbock at the time, said in an affidavit filed in connection with the case. "I would have denied a Bestiality Club. I would have denied a Gigolo Club. I would have denied a Prostitute Club. Likewise, I would deny any club that has as its basis an illegal act, such as the Marijuana Club, Kids for Cocaine, the Drinking Club, etc."

...

"Lawyers for the school district argue that the Equal Access Act permits schools to override students' free speech rights and forbids clubs if they jeopardize students' well-being. In support of that argument, they cite a little-known section of the Texas Penal Code that prohibits gay activity between youths younger than 17. Allowing a Gay-Straight Alliance amounts to giving students license to break the law, said Ann Manning, an attorney for the school district."

Though I can't find the exact penal code that this refers to, I believe it is there in the midst of the age of consent statues. It is once again, one of those small sections of code that is rarely enforced but used to enlist a legal argument in aid of homophobia.

In addition, the basis for denying the club is so far off base. Since when have GSAs become clubs for sex? That charge is used simply to provide an excuse to demonize homosexuals and feed the public the same old lines about "gays only want sex" and are a part of a greater sexual perversion. Gigolos? Bestiality? Prostitutes?

This classifies as Santorumesque in my view. And the sad thing is he probably believes it all.