Equality Texas Blog

Legislative Update 5/24: It's all about the Conference Committee

I’m Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas. We only have 3 days left in the 83rd regular session of the Texas legislature, and right now almost all of the work left to be done is being done by conference committees. In order for a bill to become law it must pass through both the House and the Senate, and each body has an opportunity to amend the bill to their liking. So what happens when the version passed by the Senate is different than the version passed by the House? Well first, the body that originated the bill, either the House or Senate, gets an opportunity to agree, or “concur,” with the changes made by the other side. Usually they will take the recommendation of the author of the bill. If the author likes the changes, they are usually accepted and then the bill is sent to the governor, if the author doesn’t like the changes, then they are not accepted, and that’s where conference committees come into play. If the changes aren’t accepted then a conference committee is created made up of five members of the House, appointed by the Speaker, and five members of the Senate, appointed by the Lieutenant Governor. The committee usually includes both the bill’s author and sponsor, and the chairs of the House and Senate committees that heard the bill. The other 6 members of the committee are generally legislators who are considered experts in the subject area of the bill. Conference committees prepare a recommended compromise. Unless given special permission, they can only compromise on the parts of the bill that are different between the House and Senate versions, anything that’s identical in the two versions must stay. Why does this matter to LGBT Texans? Well, one of the bills that’s in conference committee right now is Senate Bill 215. Rep. Matt Krause of Fort Worth attached an amendment to SB 215 in the House that would prohibit state universities from enforcing non-discrimination policies with officially recognized student organizations that receive support from the university. The amendment is specifically designed to insure that LGBT students don’t have access to all aspects of student life. The fate of that amendment, and the fate of LGBT students around the state, now rests in the hands of the 10 person conference committee, most strongly in the hands of the two committee chairs: Sen. Brian Birdwell of Granbury, SB 215’s author, and Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas, the bills House sponsor. After the committee reaches its compromise, these two members will have to return to their respective bodies, explain the compromise, and recommend whether the compromise should be accepted or not. Generally the recommendation of the author and sponsor is followed, so Anchia and Birdwell are in a very powerful position to influence the process. Rafael Anchia is one of the strongest allies the LGBT community has in the legislature. His chairmanship of the conference committee gives me great hope that future generations of LGBT students will have their right to participate in student life defended. There are two key deadlines coming up for the conference committee. The compromise has to be published and distributed to legislators by midnight tomorrow, Saturday May 25, and has to be voted on by midnight on Sunday, May 26. So we’ll find out the fate of this amendment at some point in the next three days. Until then, I’m Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas.

Legislative Update 5/17: it's been a rough week

It’s been a rough week…

With only 10 days left in the session, we were handed a couple of setbacks this week, but the session’s not over yet and there is a path ahead.

I’m Daniel Williams, Legislative Specialist and Field Organizer with Equality Texas. Let’s talk about what happened.

On Wednesday the Texas House, despite bipartisan opposition, narrowly passed an amendment giving officially recognized student organizations at state universities the ability to discriminate against other students.

The amendment, by Matt Krause of Fort Worth, instructs the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to work to prevent state universities from instituting “all comers” policies for officially recognized student groups. These “all comers” policies, which are fairly common, require that student groups that use tax-payer funded resources at schools and have access to student activity fees paid into by all students, be open to all students.

It’s a fairly straight forward idea: if you take public money, you have to accept the public, if you don’t want to be open to all students, simply don’t take the money. And let’s be clear: there is nothing stopping, nor should there be, a student from creating an exclusive club that discriminates against other students, it’s only when we start talking about tax-payer funded resources and student activity fees that the “all-comers” policies start kicking in.

When Krause originally filed this legislation as House Bill 360 his intentions were clear: he wanted to make sure that student groups were allowed to discriminate based on race, gender, and on sexual orientation. He’s since revised his talking points and is now claiming the legislation is needed to prevent “subversives” from “infiltrating” student groups. He’s also claiming that the amendment protects LGBT students too, since it would mean they could discriminate if they wanted and keep out the “subversives.”

I’ve asked around, talked to the leaders of student LGBT groups at state schools all over Texas, and none of them have told me that they fear an organized takeover of their clubs, or that anything like that has ever happened. It seems the only person paranoid enough to think that college students have nothing better to do with their times than organize conspiratorial coups of other student groups is Matt Krause.

There are still several steps in the legislative process before this amendment becomes law and I’m very hopeful that it will be removed soon.

In the meantime, we are continuing to work to pass our endorsed legislation and to fight against other bad bills and amendments.

We’ve only got 10 days left, each of them a deadline for something, and those upcoming deadlines work against both us and the enemies of equality.

If you’re in San Antonio this weekend be sure to join us Sunday morning for the Spirit of Texas brunch, featuring our special guest, actress Sharon Gless of Queer as Folk and Cagney & Lacey fame

Until next week, I’m Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas.

Legislative Update 5/10: Dead Bills, Live Bills, Bills on Life Support

 

I'm Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas. We only have 17 days left in the 83rd regular session! Here at the end of session almost every day is a deadline for something, and with each deadline bills, good and bad, are knocked out of the process.
Great news! Two more Equality Texas endorsed bills made it out of the House this week, ahead of the deadline:
HB 2240 by Sylvester Turner of Houston would conduct a study of homeless youth in Texas. This issue disproportionately affects the LGBT community. By some estimates as much as 40% of homeless youth between the ages of 14 and 22 are LGBT.
The bill is now headed to the Senate for consideration.
HB 3327 by Garnet Coleman of Houston builds on excellent anti-bullying and mental health legislation Coleman passed last session. An identical bill has already passed the Senate so some version of this will soon be headed to the Governor’s desk for consideration.
Monday was the last day for House Committees to consider house bills, so at midnight a lot of really good bills died. Let’s have a moment of silence for their passing…
[scroll bill numbers, sad music?, wipe tear from eye]
While it’s disappointing that this important legislation did not become law, with every bill we learned new things, and gained new allies that will help us in two years when we try again.
Tuesday was the deadline for the powerful House Calendars Committee to schedule bills that had made it out of committee for consideration on the House floor.
Unfortunately House Bill 2403 by Mary Gonzalez of Clint was not scheduled. HB 2403 equalizes the state’s “Romeo & Juliet” defense so that teens in same-gender relationships are treated the same way as teens in opposite-gender relationships and insures that parents, not the state, are responsible for teaching their children good values regarding physical intimacy.
Although the bill was not scheduled, it could still be added to another bill as an “amendment,” giving it new life. We’re actively looking for opportunities to do that.
With the bad, comes the good. Two bills attacking the LGBT community also failed to make the deadline Tuesday:
HB 1568 was an attempt to punish Pflugerville ISD for offering health insurance benefits to the same-gender partners of their employees.
HB 360 would have prohibited universities requiring officially recognized student organizations follow the school’s non-discrimination policy.
Equality Texas, along with our allies on the Calendars Committee, were able to keep these bills from passing. Of course, like the Romeo & Juliet bill they could still hitch a ride as an amendment to something else. We’re actively looking for anything they might get attached to and are prepared to beat back any efforts to revive these monstrous bills.
With just over two weeks left in the session more deadlines are looming. Next Friday, a week from today, is the last day for the House to vote on non-controversial bills, what are called “local and consent” bills. Next Saturday is the last day for House Committees to vote on Senate Bills.
There is still a lot happening and nothing, good or bad, is officially dead until the session ends in 17 days.
If you’re in San Antonio next weekend join us for the Spirit of Texas Brunch on Sunday the 19th. Tickets are available at SpiritofTexas.org, and we’ll put the direct link in the comments.
Until then, I’m Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas.

Legislative Update for May 3rd: The Calendars Committees

I'm Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas. We only have 24 days left in the 83^rd regular session of the Texas House and today I’d like to talk to you about the Calendars committees.

While the calendars committee may sound like the group that gets to pick Miss July it’s actually one of the most powerful Texas House Committees.

See, every bill has to be heard by one of the House’s 38 standing committees or 3 select committees. If the committee that hears the bill thinks it’s a good idea, and should become law, then the committee votes to “report favorably” which is basically a recommendation to the entire House of Representatives that they should vote for it too.

But before the House can vote on the bill, it has to be scheduled for a vote. That’s what they calendars committees do, they schedule bills that have been voted out of the other committees, and determine when they will be voted on on the House floor.

Non-controversial bills go to the 13 person Local and Consent Calendars Committee, and controversial bills go to the 15 person Calendars committee.

That’s where things get interesting: here at the end of the session there are a number of deadlines. If bills don’t reach a certain step in the process before those deadlines they die. Three of the most important deadlines are next week.

Monday is the last day for House committees to report favorably on House Bills, any bill not voted out by midnight is dead.

Tuesday is the last day for the Calendars Committee to schedule controversial House Bills, anything not scheduled by midnight is dead.

Thursday is the last day for the House, as a whole, to take the first of two required votes on controversial house bills, anything that hasn’t been brought up to the House floor by midnight is dead.

So, needless to say, a lot of bills are going to die next week.

Quickly, let’s look at three bills that are alive and kicking that Equality Texas is watching, two bad, one good.

HB 1568 by Drew Springer of Muenster would require the immediate closure of any school district, including junior college school districts, that the state Attorney General believes have violated the state constitution. This bill started off as Springer’s attempt to punish Pflugerville ISD for offering health insurance benefits to the same-gender partners of their employees (a grand total of 5 of them), but it’s morphed into an attempt to massively expand the powers of the Attorney General and anoint Greg Abbott the grand-high Czar of all schools.

The problem is that AG opinions were never intended to be judicial rulings, they are simply legal advice from the state’s top lawyer to governmental entities in the state. There’s no appeals process for an AG opinion, there’s no jury, there’s no oversight. AG opinions are just that… opinions. They’re not supposed to have the weight of law.

What’s more, Springer’s bill, if passed, would hamper the ability of the AG to do his job. There are lots of people who can request an AG’s opinion about the actions of a school district, and most of the time those requests are about minor, administrative actions. For instance, in the past the AG has ruled that school districts have violated the constitution by:

using a distribution of permanent school funds to pay down bond debt, by
paying the legal fees of an employee who sued the school, or
employing as chief of school police an person who also served on city council, or even by
not conducting a school raffle in exactly the right way

School districts, particularly smaller districts who can’t employ full time legal counsel, need this kind of legal advice, and the attorney general needs to be able to give it without accidently closing the district. Springer’s bill doesn’t allow for that. If HB 1568 passes the next school to screw up their raffle will be immediately shut down.

With the bad, there’s good: HB 2403 by Mary Gonzales of Clint would equalize the state’s Romeo and Juliet defense so that teens in same-gender relationships are treated the same way as teens in opposite-gender relationships and insures that parents, not the state, have the responsibility for instilling their values regarding physical intimacy.

Both of these bills are currently before the Calendars committee.

Also of concern is HB 360 by Matt Krause of Fort Worth. This bill would prohibit colleges from requiring that officially recognized student organizations have non-discrimination policies. Any non-discrimination policy. Rep. Krause has actually filed a bill designed to insure that college clubs can put up a “no blacks or Jews allowed” sign without fear of retribution, and somehow got the members of the House Higher Education Committee to agree with him.

The bill is intended to give homophobes permission to witch-hunt LGBT students out of their clubs, but the way it’s written would undo over a hundred years of civil rights advancements.

HB 360 is out of committee and will be before the Calendars committee with-in the next couple of days.

So the question now is, when will the committee schedule these bills for consideration? If they’re scheduled for the end of the day on Thursday, they’ll probably die at midnight without ever being considered. If they’re scheduled for earlier in the week, they’ll probably make it to the floor.

For now the fate of these bills lies entirely in the hands of the 15 members of the Calendars Committee. We’re watching them carefully and will let you know if action is needed.

Oh, and if you’re wondering who actually gets to pick the pictures for the actual Texas House Calendar, it’s the wife of the Speaker of the House, currently Julie Strauss.

Legislative Update 4/19: Hate Crimes, and School Clubs and Employment - Oh My!

 

It's Friday, April 19.
I'm Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas and we're recapping the 14th week of the 83rd Texas Legislature's regular session.
We’ve only got 38 days left so let’s get right to it
On Tuesday the House Criminal Jurisprudence committee heard HB 3324 by Garnet Coleman of Houston. The bill would add “gender identity and expression” to the state’s existing hate crimes law. Currently the hate crimes law allows prosecutors to seek tougher penalties in cases where crimes are motivated by the perpetrator’s bias against a list of universal traits that have historically been the basis for widespread and systemic discrimination in our culture.
That list includes race, religion, color, sex, ability, “sexual preference,” age, or national origin. These are all universal attributes: everybody has a race, everybody has an age, everybody has a national orgin…
And they’ve all been the basis for widespread, historic and systemic discrimination.
Likewise gender identity and expression are universal traits that have been the basis for widespread, historic and system discrimination and belong on that list.
We’ve put a link to a video of the hearing in the comments so you can see for yourself how it went. Warning: some of the questions and the testimony of one of the witnesses may be difficult to watch, but the hearing went very well and I’m excited that we’ve begun this important conversation.
On Wednesday the House Higher Education committee heard HB 1568 by Matt Krause of Fort Worth. Krause’s bill as originally filed would give officially recognized religious organizations at Texas Universities special rights to discriminate based on race, gender or sexual orientation.
Now, every student at every university has a right to form a club around whatever idea they want and to meet on campus. That’s not what we’re talking about with HB 1568. What we’re talking about are officially recognized clubs that get financial and material support from tax-payer funded schools. This isn’t about the freedom of speech, it’s about the ability to demand that tax-payers pay for your clubhouse. Once that happens the state has a responsibility to be sure that every student has equal access to the clubhouse - plain and simple.
Krause has offered a compromise bill that’s even worse than the original. Where the original granted special rights to religious clubs to discriminate, the compromise bill forbids schools from imposing any non-discrimination policy on any school supported club.  We’ll be watching this carefully.
On Thursday the House Public Education committee was scheduled to vote on HB 1568 by Drew Springer of Muenster. Springer’s bill originally would have reduced state funding for public school districts that offer benefits to unmarried partners of their staff. This is another situation where the author has offered a compromise that’s worse than the original. Springer has written a committee substitute that would require the immediate decertification and defunding of any school district that the Attorney General determines has taken an action in conflict with the state constitution.
This is an unprecedented expansion of the powers of the Attorney General. The AG is the state’s lawyer, and in that capacity he routinely issues legal opinions that serve as guidance to state agencies. However, and it’s important to note this, the AG’s opinions do not carry the weight of law, they are only advice. Springer’s compromise bill would effectively grant the AG the power to shut down any school district, with no appeals process.
Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of you who called the members of the Public Education committee HB 1568 was withdrawn from consideration, but it could come back, so stay tuned.
Next Wednesday the House Economic and Small Business Development Committee will hear HB 238 by Rep. Mike Villarreal of San Antonio and HB 1146 by Rep. Eric Johnson of Dallas. Both bills deal with employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
Employment discrimination against the LGBT community is a very real problem. These bills would allow the Texas Workforce Commission to investigate claims of discrimination in an open and fair process without creating a civil liability for businesses.
Tune in next week and we’ll let you know how the hearing went!
Until then I’m Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas.

Legislative Update 4/12: Victory in the Senate and Tips for Homophobic Lobbyists

 

It's Friday, April 12.
I'm Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas and we're recapping the 13th week of the 83rd Texas Legislature's regular session.
With only 45 days left things are moving fast
On Tuesday the House Criminal Jurisprudence and the Senate Criminal Justice Committees heard testimony about the inequity in Texas’ Romeo and Juliet Law.
See, we Texans are pretty reasonable people, and we realize that, shock of all shockers, teenagers sometimes make bad decisions about sex, and because we’re a pretty reasonable people, we also realize that high school sweethearts are not sex offenders, they’re just teenagers making a bad decision, and throwing them in jail and requiring them to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives doesn’t help anyone: not the teenager, not the parents and not Texans.
Texas’ practice of treating teens in same-gender relationships differently than teens in opposite-gender relationships is unfair.
Parents have the responsibility of shepherding their kids through this difficult time, the state needs to butt out and let parents be parents.
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee understood that and, under the direction of Chairman John Whitmire of Houston (who is also the author of the bill) promptly voted the bill out of committee. The House committee is taking a little more time to mull it over, but we’re confident they’ll understand that all teens should be treated equally by the law and vote the House version of the bill out soon.
Thank you to Sen. Whitmire and the house’s bill author Rep. Mary Gonzalez for their leadership. Also, I’d like to thank Rep. Garnet Coleman of Houston for his tireless work on this issue. Rep. Coleman has been THE leader on the inequities in the Romeo and Juliet law for over a decade. Sometimes one lawmaker gets a bill to the goal line and then someone else takes it into the end zone. But anyone who is willing to be a leader in the work for equality deserves our thanks and on this and so many other issues Rep. Coleman has been a tireless leader – so thank you!
Also on Tuesday the House Public Education committee heard HB 1568 by Drew Springer of Munster. See, there’s this little school district north of Austin call Pflugerville ISD, and like a lot of school districts on the edges of growing cities Pflugerville is experiencing a wave of young families moving in, and with them a wave of children in its schools. So Pflugerville ISD needs more teachers, but it’s hard for small towns to recruit recent college grads who would rather go live in more, shall we say “exciting places.” So Pflugerville ISD asked a committee of teachers and parents to come up with low and no cost ideas of how to be more attractive to new teachers, and one of the ideas the committee came up with is to offer health insurance benefits to the unmarried partners of their teaching staff, the same way that most major business do. The local school trustees thought that sounded like a great, no cost, way to be more competitive and put the plan into action.
But that locally made decision was just too much for Drew Springer, who lives 200 miles away. See Springer, and his old pal former state representative Warren Chisum, didn’t say a peep when the City of Dallas started offering partner benefits a decade ago, they didn’t seem to care when the Cities of Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso offered benefits. No, it’s just when a small town decides to exercise its local control that Drew Springer and Warren Chisum get their delicates in a wad.
I’m not sure if that’s because they think they can push around the little guys, or if they just think they own all the small towns, but on Tuesday they got their chance to convince the public education committee that it was somehow appropriate for the legislature to drop the important business of the state and focus on punishing Pflugerville ISD for making a local decision… it did not go well.
The committee clearly was having none of it and I’ve got a tip for Drew Springer: members of the legislature don’t like being yelled at. Like most human beings they respond much better to personal and authentic appeals than to crazy old people shaking their fists. Next time, Rep. Springer, you may want to advise your witnesses to maintain some semblance of civility and leave the anger and histrionics to yelling at those damn kids to get off their lawn.
Next week should be eventful as well. On Tuesday the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee will hear testimony on the inclusion of the trans* community in the state’s hate crimes bill.
•    Transgender people are 28% more likely to experience physical violence than other people.
•    A transgender person living in America today has a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered. The average person has about a one in 18,000 chance of being murdered.
•    One out of every 1000 homicides in the U.S. is an anti-transgender hate crime.
The hearing, on HB 3324 will be at some time after 10:30 am on Tuesday. The committee needs to hear from the trans* community, particularly from victims of hate crimes, so if you can be in Austin on Tuesday please make every effort to be here.
Until next week I’m Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas.

Austin American-Statesman Editorial Board: Gay Teens Deserve Equal Treatment

The existing Romeo & Juliet Affirmative Defense is a logical approach to the reality that adolescents sometimes make sexual decisions that adults wish they had not made, but that adolescents have been making since the beginning of time.

No one is saying teens should be sexually active. But, sometimes they are.

Under current law, if these teens are of opposite sexes, this remains a matter between parents and their children.

However, the Romeo & Juliet Defense is not currently available to dating teens of the same gender.

The state should not intrude on the right of parents to instill their values about sex into their children. Nor should the state interfere if teenage sweethearts make decisions that we as adults know are not what is best for them.

But this needs to be a conversation between parents and their children. Not between parents, their children, the arresting officer, the prosecuting attorney, and a trial judge.

There are at least 40 references to this law in other sections of the Code. A conviction of “indecency with a child” limits the ability to get a job, to secure an apartment, and makes going to college almost impossible.

Again, we are not saying teens should be sexually active. But sometimes they are, and it does not make sense to put them in jail for it.  That does not solve anything.

SB 1316 by Senator Whitmire and HB 2403 by Rep. Mary Gonzalez would remove the existing gender restrictions in the Romeo & Juliet Affirmative Defense.

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Here is the Austin American-Statesman's Editorial Board statement on this issue:

Gay teenagers deserve same legal protection given to straight teens

Two teens have sex. (It happens.) One teen is, let’s say, 16 and the other is 18. Has the 18-year-old teen committed a crime by having sex with a minor?

No, Texas law common sensibly says, not if the sexual relationship is consensual, and not if the teens are older than 14, and their ages must not be more than three years apart.

Oh, and not as long as the teens are of the opposite sex. Here, the common-sense law turns toward the discriminatory, because if the two teens are of the same sex, well …

State law properly protects older teens of the opposite sex from possible prosecution on a charge of sexual indecency with a child but does not extend the same reasonable protection to gay teenagers. Democratic state Sen. John Whitmire has filed a bill that corrects this unfair legal distinction by simply striking the phrase “and of the opposite sex” from current law. State Rep. Mary Gonzalez, D-El Paso, has filed a version of the bill in the Texas House.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee, which Whitmire chairs, voted 4-1 Tuesday to move the proposed legislation to the full Senate for its consideration. Only Republican state Sen. Charles Schwertner of Georgetown voted against the measure. (Three committee members — two Republicans and one Democrat — were absent.)

Extending to gay teens the same protection from possible prosecution for a sex crime is the fair thing to do. We hope the Senate follows the Criminal Justice Committee’s recommendation and approves Whitmire’s bill, and that the House does the same with Gonzalez’s version.

The protection from possible prosecution granted heterosexual teens is referred to as the “Romeo and Juliet” defense, after William Shakespeare’s tragic love story, of course. (Juliet would fail to meet the law’s age requirement, since she’s only 13 — a couple of weeks shy of her 14th birthday, Shakespeare writes – but we won’t nitpick the point of the reference. It stands.) The proposed legislation acknowledges that there are Romeos out there who desire not Juliet but who want to be more than close friends with Mercutio, and that gay teenagers, like their straight counterparts, have sex.

The law should treat sexually active gay teens the same as sexually active heterosexual teens as long as a gay couple is meeting the law’s age and consent requirements. There is no reason to treat gay teens differently.

It should be a simple matter of fairness. But here in Texas, where conservatives have a history of opposing gay rights and railing against the “gay liberal agenda,” few supporters of the proposed change assume the Legislature will do the right thing and amend the law to let it stand silent on sexual orientation. A tough fight is expected.

No one’s advocating that teens, straight or gay, have sex. But a change in state law won’t encourage teens to have sex any more than leaving the law as is discourages them from having sex. We’re confident that legal distinctions aren’t exactly on teenage minds at amorous moments. Sometimes teenage love, unlike Romeo’s unrequited love for Rosaline, is quite requited. Sometimes teens are as impetuous as Shakespeare’s star-cross’d lovers.

It’s not unusual for states to allow discretion for teenage relationships in their sex offender laws, according to the Associated Press, citing the National Conference of State Legislatures. It is unusual, however, for a state to attach an “opposite sex” requirement to the law.

As far as anyone knows, no gay teenager has been prosecuted under the state’s law, but the distinction is written into law and should be deleted. As long as the law is on the books, the possibility exists that some overzealous prosecutor somewhere will seek to ruin a libidinous teenager’s young life by punishing him or her for doing something few of us would consider a crime.

On a related legal matter, Texas’ anti-sodomy law, struck down 6-3 by the U.S. Supreme Court 10 year ago, inexplicably remains on the books — “under a notation,” the AP reports, “that it is unconstitutional.” Yes, it is. States cannot criminalize gay sex. Notation aside, it’s long past time the Legislature erased this illegal statute.

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Posted by:

Brandon McDaniel

Communications Intern

 

 

Guest Blogger, Kristi Grady, Shares Her Story

Rissy and I have been together for over 10 years.  Together we had a child. This is our story: Imagine for a moment being told that you could never carry biological children. The doctors are not saying you should not, but that you could not because of medication you take every day to survive. This is what the doctors told Rissy Walker. Her epilepsy robbed her of the ability to carry a child. Now, imagine you meet a partner, fall in love and live together as spouses for five years, and she carries a baby to term. There has never been a more wanted child, or a more devoted set of parents. Rissy was the first person to hold Rylee when she was born. She loved her, chose her, supported her, and raised her. She wanted to adopt Rylee and make it official, but there were obstacles. Rylee’s biological father, whom she does not remember, wanted in her life. He wanted to take her away from her parents. Her parents refused. Finally, after a long and grueling journey, good news; he agreed to sign over his rights so that the adoption could proceed. We were elated. Next, there were rounds of meetings with attorneys, social workers, ad litems, fingerprinting, home studies and the various funds needed to secure the adoption. We passed. The adoption would go through. On March 19, 2013, Rissy’s co-workers arranged for a limousine to take our little family to the courthouse. Then, a judge with tears in his eyes declared us a family, forever. Now imagine being through everything and then being denied a birth certificate for your daughter. That is exactly what has happened to our family. Despite a legal adoption in Texas, we cannot obtain an amended birth certificate solely because we are a same sex couple. Our daughter has been denied this basic form of identification because she is loved and parented by two women. T hat is not fair. It is not equal, and it must be changed!

Guest Post: Students Lobby Against the Zedler Amendment

After spending most of the weekend of March 30-31 reviewing pre-filed amendment to the appropriations bill Equality Texas discovered the Zedler Amendment, an attack on LGBT Campus Resource Center under the spurious assumption that they encouraged the spread of HIV/AIDS, at about 2 am on the morning of Monday, April 1. In anticipation of just such an attack we had prepared a list of student leaders, including Yesenia Chavez at the University of Houston. We began contacting the student leaders early Monday morning and they swung into action! We asked Yesenia to write about the experience:

On the ride home from Austin Thursday evening, the reality of what we had just accomplished hit me, and I was moved to tears. Tears of joy. Much different from the tears that I shed on Monday when Equality Texas’ Daniel Williams first alerted us about the Zedler amendment.

On Monday, I cried because I felt like us, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals, keep getting punched and kicked from all sides, every single day. I cried because, as an advocate and an activist, it becomes emotionally draining, exhausting even, to care so deeply about a minority population and its issues, knowing that as soon as there is an attack, we must act. Further, knowing that people are looking to you to do something about it.

On Thursday evening, as my fellow Senators and long time friends, James Lee and Guillermo Lopez, journeyed back with me to Houston, all of the thoughts of exhaustion and frustration dissipated.

In 4 days we began the social media campaign, “Get Off My Backpack” which spread all across Texas, through the help of multiple LGBT organizations and independent activists. We hit the ground running, meeting with the University of Houston’s Student Government Association President, Cedric Bandoh, motivating him to make phone calls to Austin on behalf of the student body, wrote the UH SGA Resolution in Opposition to Texas Senate Bill 1 Amendment Zedler-1, added 15 sponsors to our resolution, and in the midst of all this, each of us made personal phone calls to state representatives in Austin. The resolution passed unanimously during the first Senate meeting of the 50th UH SGA administration, we quickly had the UH SGA President sign our resolution, and shortly thereafterEquality Texas offered to prodie us transportation to the capitol to lobby in person.

In a matter of hours we were on a bus to Austin, waiting outside of the House chamber to speak with state representatives and hand them a copy of our signed resolution, in person. My spirits were high as state representatives took time to meet with us throughout the hearing for amendments to the General Appropriations Bill, even though they knew the debate would continue into the wee hours of the night.

I was enthused to have democratic representatives shake my hand, look me in the eyes and tell me I was right, that I do belong and deserve a place of comfort, safety, and resources as an LGBT student at a Texas university. I spoke to conservative representatives who can now place a face to the issue, and know a bisexual student from UH believes that equality should be for everybody in Texas and that university campuses should be a place of education that also provide an inclusive environment for all types of students.

I am proud, I am empowered, and simply moved. I am so very grateful for the opportunity I have been given to be a leader in this effort.  As I listened to Macklemore’s “Same Love” on the bus ride home, tears ran down my face while I heard him say “No law’s gonna change us, we have to change us,” because that is what I did. I am now confident that I can make a difference, and fortunately that sometimes the good guys DO win.

This is not an accomplishment to add to a resume, but rather a personal fight for my right to be fully integrated into my university, my state, and my country, as a female Mexican-American bisexual individual.

Yesenia Chavez is a Senior at the University of Houston Majoring in Political Science and Liberal Studies- Minors in National Securities Studies, GLBT Studies, and History. She serves as the senator for the SGA CLASS #8.

In this week's Legislative Update: Effective Use of the Withdrawl Method to Kill Legislation

So much is happening we split this week's update into two parts:

I'm Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas There’s so much going on we split this week’s update into two parts. In part I talked about what happened this week, now let’s talk about what’s coming up next week. So here’s what’s coming up next week , the 13th week of the 83rd Texas Legislature's regular session. Both the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee will hold hearings on Tuesday on the inequity in the state’s Romeo and Juliet defense. We have a law in Texas, it's a very good law, when I tell you about it I think you'll agree with me that it's a good law, we have a law that says you can't have sex with children. Everyone agree that's a good law? There's an exception to this law, it's a very good exception, when I tell you about it I think you'll agree with me that it's a good exception, it's an exception that says that if the two people involved are both over 14, are within three years of each other's age and the contact was consensual then the adult party won't be charged. Everyone agree that's a good exception? The problem is that there's a fourth criteria to the exception that I didn't tell you about. The two parties must both be over 14, within three years of each other's age, the contact must be consensual and the parties must be of the opposite sex. That means we have a situation in Texas right now where if two high school students, one an 18 year old senior and one a 16 year old junior, become physically intimate, if the 18 year old is male and the 16 year old is female then the law doesn't get involved, but if the 18 year old is female and the 16 year old is female then the 18 year old can be arrested, sent to prison and required to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life. Look, teenagers sometimes make decisions that we as adults know are not what's best for them, but that needs to be a conversation between parents and their children... not between parents, their children, the arresting officer, the bailiff, the prosecuting attorney and the trial judge. The state should not intrude on the right of parents to instill their values regarding sex into their children. The hearings on Tuesday will begin to address this issue. Also on Tuesday the House Public Education Committee will hear HB 1568 by Drew Springer of Munster. HB 1568 seeks to put a tax on local control by reducing state funding for school districts that offer benefits to the non-dependent household members of school employees, including employee's same-gender partners Currently only one Texas School District, the Pflugerville Independent School District, offers benefits of this nature. Local elected officials in Pfugerville decided that this benefit was needed to hire and retain the best possible educators, This was a business decision, made by local officials who are in the best position to make local decisions, and they don’t need Drew Springer who represents a district 200 miles away, to tell them what to do. 66% of registered voters in Texas support extending domestic partnership benefits to government and public university employees. Rep. Springer is trying to impose his extreme views by meddling in what should be a local decision. Check in next week and we’ll tell you how the hearings went! Until next time I’m Daniel Williams, Field Organizer and Legislative Specialist with Equality Texas.