Ah, Texas. Texas, Texas.
The Gay Star News (geddit? Lone Star state?) reports on a Texas Republican who hopes to be elected governor.
Texas Republican Larry SECEDE Kilgore hopes to win the support of LGBTI voters in his bid to become governor of the state – but then plans to secede from the United States and introduce Biblically based laws, including the death penalty for homosexuality.
Sounds like a winner. “Support my campaign for governor, then when elected, I will do my best to get laws passed that will make your existence a crime punishable by death.” Who could resist such an offer?
Kilgore, who legally changed his middle name to SECEDE last year, hopes that gay voters will support him and his bid to make Texas its own country to avoid what he says are the US Federal Government’s oppressive taxes and promises that he won’t try to introduce anything like the death penalty until Texas is independent.
‘The only position I have is secession,’ Kilgore told Lone Star Q on Monday.
‘I am a Christian, and I have lots of Christian beliefs. However, I am trying to build a coalition of all different types of people. I look at the lesbians and the homosexual folks and I say, “Hey, DC is stealing my money just like they’re stealing your money.” After we get our freedom, then we can decide all that stuff — hopefully at a county level.”
Cool. First the state secedes, then it starts executing teh gayz at a county level. Nothing to object to in that. If one county gets unpleasant, there’s always another county, unless there isn’t.
to woo more progressive voters who would like to see Texas become a country, he has promised to step down after achieving that goal and stay out of power for at least a year before running for office again – at which point he would then seek biblical punishments for homosexuals.
‘I would very much approve of a biblical law that prevented homosexual behavior in the new nation,’ Kilgore said.
‘According to the Bible, it should be execution, if anyone participates in that activity.’
However Kilgore said he was open to the idea of different areas of Texas having different laws on homosexuality and would support candidates who were gay as long as they wanted to make Texas its own country.
Well he’s really quite a tolerant and liberal guy, if you look closely. Right now he wants teh gayz killed, but he’s open to alternatives. I’m impressed.
Also he doesn’t want to kill teh gayz until after they’ve elected him. “Vote for me and you can live for at least a year.”
His brain must have seceded from his head. He should just move to Saudi Arabia. I’m sure they have everything he’s looking for: oil and theocracy.
So get him elected and when he takes his year off after achieving secession, use that time to get religion outlawed and proclaim Texas an atheist country.
Why would you want to secede? Sure, there are drawbacks to being part of the union. But once you leave, you would be subject to our foreign policy, which I hear isn’t that great either.
Worse, Steve: the last time folks tried secession, it turned into an ugly little war that lasted years. This time it’d turn into an ugly little war that would last weeks, followed by martial law for years and a police state that would run for many more.
In the case Texas v. White 74 U.S. 700 (1869) the Supreme Court determined that states do not have the right to secede.
I think this is telling:
[my emphasis]
Some people seem genuinely unable to tell the difference between a world where X is a criminal offence and a world where people don’t do X. It’s the same mindset that thinks that locking people up for using drugs is a humane and compassionate policy – it presupposes that criminalising a behaviour will more-or-less stop it happening, whereas what it does is just ensure that those who get caught suffer harm at the hands of the law.
Obviously with genuinely victim-creating crimes this is justifiable, because we still want such people to be apprehended and prevented from victimising more people, even if we fail to make them genuinely want to stop (though we should of course try for that too if we can) … but unless you can get people to internalise the idea that a behaviour is wrong, you’ll have a very hard time stopping them from doing it merely by declaring it illegal.
People expect the current Supreme Court to recognize and abide by previous rulings and precedent?