Pages

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Senate Adjourns Without Considering Anti-Trans Marriage Bill

The Texas Senate has adjourned for the day without considering SB 723, by Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands). The bill would remove a court order changing a person's legally recognized sex from the list of documents that can be used to obtain a marriage license. The author's stated intent is to make a 1999 case from the Texas fourth court of appeals Littleton v. Prange the binding case law for all of Texas, prohibiting anyone who has changed their legally recognized sex from getting married. (Read LQ's Legislative Intent and SB 723).

SB 723 remains on the Senate's schedule for tomorrow. If passed the bill would next go to the House for referral to committee, which is likely to be the House Public Health Committee. The committee would then have until Saturday, May 21 to vote on it.

The far right-wing Liberty Institute has issued an alert on their blog encouraging people to call Senators in support of the bill. The right is mobilizing! To be effective we need to cancel out their calls 2 to 1. Please contact your Senator today and urge them to "oppose SB 723" then use your Facebook, Twitter, blog and just plain personal friendships to encourage others to do the same.

Equality Texas has set up an easy to use form e-mail that will automatically be sent to your Senator here. Please also call your Senator. If Williams has turned one of the Dems it may be Carlos Uresti (San Antonio) who voted "present, not voting" when SB 723 came through the Senate Jurisprudence committee (at one point a "no" vote from him would have killed the bill). Uresti can be reached at his Capitol office at (512) 463-0119.

No comments:

Post a Comment