Modbert
Daydream Believer
- Sep 2, 2008
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Flashback: Rick Perry Supports Criminalizing Gay Sex | Mother Jones
That doesn't sound like "Small Government" Conservatism to me.
So what exactly has Perry done? Well, for one, he is (still) a supporter of the Texas "homosexual conduct" statute, an archaic law that made it a crime for two consenting, unrelated adults to have sex if they were of the same gender. The law was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the landmark 2002 case Lawrence v. Texas, but, despite repeated efforts, Texas has yet to formally repeal the statute. When Perry was asked about the Lawrence case in 2002, he defended the anti-sodomy statute: "I think our law is appropriate that we have on the books." He wrote about the case in his 2011 book Fed Up, too, citing the Lawrence decision as the product of "nine oligarchs in robes" and an example of what's wrong with our judicial system. And last spring, when Perry ran for his third full term as governor, he did so on a state GOP platform that exlicitly stated "we oppose the legalization of sodomy."
That doesn't sound like "Small Government" Conservatism to me.