State becoming infamous for its culture of cruelty
It’s hard to see much good in the wreckage of the just-ended legislative session. And that raises an important question: Is this the Texas we really want?
The Texas our lawmakers are shaping is one with too little respect for civil liberties or regard for treating every person equally under the law and with the dignity we all deserve.
One of the most tragic bills passed this session allows faith-based, child-welfare service providers that contract with the state to refuse to work with qualified foster and adoptive parents simply because they object to whom they love. Those providers, who spend our tax dollars, will be able to discriminate against LGBT parents who could provide safe, loving homes to thousands of Texas children who desperately need them.
The bill also puts the religious beliefs of providers ahead of the best interests of the children in their care. For example, a provider might try to use the law as a shield when it forces LGBT children into discredited and abusive “reparative therapy” programs to “cure” them. Foster parents could refuse to help a minor gain access to emergency contraception after she is sexually assaulted.
Lawmakers also continued a decadeslong assault on women’s constitutional right to abortion care. They have passed draconian laws — based on transparent lies, debunked videos and ignorance of medical best practices — designed to make access to abortion harder and to shame women who choose this legal, safe component of reproductive health care.
New laws impose unnecessary and costly regulations dealing with fetal tissue and bar women from donating that tissue for research after an abortion. Legislators also banned certain abortion procedures — even as doctors warned they were interfering with the duty of physicians to provide the most medically appropriate care for their patients.
Lawmakers insisted on keeping deceptive requirements designed to make it harder for people of color, older Texans, the poor and students to vote. And they passed a “show your papers”style law targeting immigrants. That means any Texans who look “foreign” to a police officer could find themselves trying to prove they are in this country legally — even in minor situations like a traffic stop.
Worse still are bills that almost passed.
The House came within just a few votes of approving an especially cruel measure that would force women to carry to term a fetus with severe abnormalities that doctors say it can’t survive. Legislators even tried to protect physicians who withhold information about severe fetal abnormalities in an attempt to prevent a patient from choosing an abortion. At the same time, they failed to restore funding that helps pay for desperately needed therapy for disabled children.
Some bills also radically redefined religious freedom by turning this fundamental protection into a weapon that businesses and individuals could use to discriminate against LGBT people and others they don’t approve of. One Senate-passed bill would have allowed county clerks and other public officials to refuse to serve same-sex couples — whose taxes help pay for their salaries — seeking a marriage license.
A bill stigmatizing transgender Texans and banning them from public restrooms where they feel safe in government buildings and schools also passed the Senate. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick then made reauthorization of the Texas Medical Board dependent on the House passing this “bathroom bill.” In his campaign for that and other discriminatory bills, Patrick worked with organizations the Southern Poverty Law Center has placed on its list of hate groups.
Is this the kind of Texas we all want? That’s an important question — because Texas is looking to the rest of the country like an increasingly cruel and unwelcoming place that is hostile to its most vulnerable residents.