Texas Chooses Intolerance over Harsher Bigotry

This past session, Texas legislators looked into the abyss and then turned away. But only barely. Texas teetered on the verge of becoming the only state to ban gays, lesbians, and bisexuals from serving as foster parents before the Senate pulled back from an amendment to legislation pending in the Statehouse. Instead of staining Texas as the most intolerant state in the union with regard to the rights of its gay and bisexual citizens, Texas legislators chose merely to give its voters the choice of amending the Texas Constitution to ban civil unions for gay Texans. These two legislative events — the unsuccessful attempt to ban LGBT foster parents and the successful proposal to offer the anti-gay constitutional amendment to a statewide ballot — were among the key civil rights issues before the Texas Legislature this session. In the end, the Texas Legislature chose run-of-the-mill intolerance over wholly unprecedented bigotry. Viewed in that context, it was a victory.