From: Jason Lin <71043.1570@CompuServe.COM>

                   
TEXAS SUPREME COURT TO HEAR CHALLENGE TO STATE'S SODOMY LAW

By Bruce Hight
American-Statesman Capitol Staff

     A Dallas woman challenging the state's sodomy law said Monday
the Texas Supreme Court should repeal the statute so that gays and
lesbians can become part of the community and not be labeled
criminals.
     The court will hear arguments at 9 a.m. today on the challenge
to the state law that makes it a crime for consenting homosexuals
to engage in sexual acts with one another in private. There is no
law prohibiting such conduct among heterosexuals.
     "In order for us to be part of this community and to
accept ourselves and to tell who we are, we have to know
that the government does not sanction hate of ourselves
against ourselves and of people against us," said Charlotte Taft,
a Dallas lesbian who is one of five plaintiffs in the case.
     Two of the plaintiffs - Tom Doyal and Pat Cramer - are from
Austin.      The Texas Human Rights Foundation, which is sponsoring
the suit, has won the first two rounds, with victories in a state
district
court and the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin.
     The lower courts said the sodomy law violates a state
constitutional right to privacy.
     Attorney General Dan Morales appealed the 3rd Court's
ruling, saying the issue is important enough to be settled
by the state's highest court for civil cases.
     Suzy Wagers, director of development of the
foundation, said at a Capitol press conference Monday that
overturning the law would be "the first step in realizing
true equal rights for gay men and lesbians in Texas."
     Wagers said a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the
challenge to the sodomy law was filed by the Texas Abortion Rights
Action League, the National Abortion Rights Action League
and Planned Parenthood chapters in Austin and Houston.
     Prosecutions under the law, enacted in 1879, are rare, and
even if a defendant is convicted, the maximum fine is
$200.
     But Taft said it is hard to describe how damaging it
is to homosexuals to be "labeled criminal because of their
loving." She likened the law to statutes that once banned
interracial marriages and prohibited blacks from using
public restrooms and water fountains.
     Doyal said the sodomy law is "institutionalized
bigotry" and that, while it seldom is enforced, its effect
on gays and lesbians is "devastating, costing them jobs,
stigmatizing them in the eyes of their families as
criminals" and subjecting them to indignity.
     One recent controversy that erupted over the law was
the Dallas Police Department's refusal to hire a lesbian as a
police officer because of the sodomy law.
     Tom Henderson, vice president of the foundation's
board, said overturning the law would not affect other laws that
ban such things as public lewdness and prostitution.

(`Austin American-Statesman,' 1-5-93)