Domestic Partnership in Texas? (Houston, Dallas: insurance, crime, neighborhoods)

[jlw0001]

My partner and I are thinking of moving from Los Angeles to Austin. Does anyone know what the domestic partnership laws are in TX, specifically the city of Austin? Thanks!!

[equus007]

You can't.

Austin doesn't care what you do but legaly your partner has no standing w/the State(we still have a law against sodomy as well). Most employers will still cover him/her under their policy regardless of the move if they covered them in the first place. City employee's partners are covered by their insurance.

Houston and DFW have large gay neighborhoods but Austin has one street on one block downtown more or less devoted to "gay life" and even on that street is only every other club. It is different here. Being gay does not immediatly segregate you from everyone else. If you are not a heterophobe you will find that you will get treated more or less the same as anyone else and the people with whom you make friends will be mixed.

Flaming queens are looked down upon just as super-machismo men. If all you have to offer the world is your sexuality then you will be used as a tool or just ignored.

[equus007]

Most of the older gay couples I know love living here.

[romesq]

"Austin doesn't care what you do but legaly your partner has no standing w/the State(we still have a law against sodomy as well)."


Not since 2003. The US Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, struck down all sodomy laws nationwide that criminalized consenting non-commercial adult sexual behavior.

[SDBreaux]

Originally Posted by equus007

You can't.

Austin doesn't care what you do but legaly your partner has no standing w/the State(we still have a law against sodomy as well). Most employers will still cover him/her under their policy regardless of the move if they covered them in the first place. City employee's partners are covered by their insurance.

Houston and DFW have large gay neighborhoods but Austin has one street on one block downtown more or less devoted to "gay life" and even on that street is only every other club. It is different here. Being gay does not immediatly segregate you from everyone else. If you are not a heterophobe you will find that you will get treated more or less the same as anyone else and the people with whom you make friends will be mixed.

Flaming queens are looked down upon just as super-machismo men. If all you have to offer the world is your sexuality then you will be used as a tool or just ignored.

Before you decide to be the messenger of bad news for someone, please get your facts straight. The US Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws in 2003 within the state of Texas and seven other states.

To the O/P: The city of Austin offered domestic partnerships to city employees prior to the 2005 amendment banning same-sex marriage. There was also a county (city?) in Dallas that offered same-sex domestic partnerships prior to 2005, but not sure who qualified for it.

Regardless, the state of Texas is becoming more and more gay-friendly. It is true what the previous poster said: flaming won't get you much respect here. However, you will find in the major metros - which account for more than half the population in the entire state - the attitude toward gays, their rights to have children and enter into civil unions is somewhat moderate for what people generally consider a "conservative" state. I wouldn't go that far: Texas is a moderate state, at least in my reality. I don't go out of my "zone," meaning I stick to metropolitan areas, speficially Houston and Dallas.

You may contact Equality Texas :: Home for more information about the status of gay rights in the state of Texas. Currently, the only protection offered by the state for gays and lesbians is hate crime protection. Other than that, the state is wide open to court challenges.

Hope that helps.

[equus007]

Originally Posted by SDBreaux

Before you decide to be the messenger of bad news for someone, please get your facts straight. The US Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws in 2003 within the state of Texas and seven other states.

.

Glad to hear it. Didn't know it had been killed finaly. We are pretty Metro.

[Lior Arel]

Hey JLW, I'm gay and have several friends trying to get me to move to Dallas. They say it's fantastic there and some of them (gasp) are so-called "flamers".

[TheHarvester]

From what I've seen, Texas is vastly more gay-friendly than non-Texans tend to believe. Texas is a Hollywood symbol for "ignorant redneck macho cowboys in lifeless flat terrain." That's fine, they need a place to use for that purpose for making movies and it doesn't matter.

In reality, the voting populace of Texas is quite conservative, it's not changing much, and yet people don't really seem to care about what you do in your private life. It's a very strange culture. I've only lived here for 17 years so I need another hundred years before I'll grasp the concept. People who are totally cool with having a gay couple living next door will campaign against gay marriage. Can anyone explain this to me?

The experience of living here as a gay person is positive from the 2 or 3 dozen gay people I know in the Austin area, and I hear that Houston and Dallas have even better gay scenes for those who want to be "out," but they're confined to specific zones of those cities. Meanwhile, in the small towns of central and west Texas, it seems that there is a "live and let live" attitude combined with a traditional "family values" voting pattern. That's where I get confused. A town that votes in favor of defining marriage as "between a man and a woman" might be a great place for a gay couple to live because the people there don't care about your sexual preference. Yet they vote as if they do care. I'm not sure I'll ever grasp the concept of Texas. It's a very interesting state, to say the least.

[Lior Arel]

People who are totally cool with having a gay couple living next door will campaign against gay marriage. Can anyone explain this to me?

Discrimination comes in degrees. In the above scenario you mentioned it's a case of "I accept you, but I don't think you're equal to me".

For many GLBT people, just being able to live your life behind closed doors isn't good enough. Sure, everyone in the neighborhood may know you're a gay couple and leave you alone for it, but you still get whispered about and joked about. Also, you are typically discriminated against in community events and organizations even though it's not outright spoken of. That's why it is so important to have a "gay community". It's a safe place (businesses, recreations, etc.) where you can be free to be who you are without worry of the discriminations that go on all to often and right under the noses of people who think it isn't happening. Amazingly many people who say "I don't care if someone is gay or not" are disriminatory too.

[SDBreaux]

Originally Posted by TheHarvester

People who are totally cool with having a gay couple living next door will campaign against gay marriage. Can anyone explain this to me?

It is true when people say Texas is "30 or 50 years behind socially."

That attitude - OK with gay neighbors with families but protest gay marriage - has a lot to do first, the most obvious, religion. Secondly, it's the same mindset that kept many groups of people "back" in the past, such as the time when slavery was ended and "freedom" awarded, blacks still had to endure discrimination in many sectors of society, including using the worst public facilities, last to choose where they wanted to sit and no right to vote. Although they were given "freedom" to live with the white folk, they were still treated "separate but equal." Also is the same mindset that kept the right of a woman to vote illegal for many years.

It's just the same old tune, same discrimination, but in different forms. If other parts of the country are any indication of the future, America will be a majority pro-gay society within 50 years. Within 100 years homosexual couples and families will be considered no less than a heterosexual couple.