 So by now, most of you know about Clarence Thomas's ominous recommendation in Dobbs to revisit particular cases that he believes were wrongly decided. Cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges. But in order for the Supreme Court to strike down these old precedents that they've created, there has to be a state that intentionally passes a law that violates these holdings of the Supreme Court. Now Lawrence v. Texas in particular is interesting because that overturned sodomy laws that Texas passed. So Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was asked would he defend a law in his capacity as Attorney General that recriminalized sodomy? Because after all Lawrence v. Texas was about Texas and his answer is chilling because he said yes effectively. He would defend the recriminalization of gay intimacy in an effort to help that reach the Supreme Court so they can overturn Lawrence v. Texas. Take a look. I'm sure you read Justice Thomas' concurrence where he said that there were a number of other of these issues. Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell that he felt needs to be looked at again. Obviously the Lawrence case came from Texas. That was what outlawed sodomy. Would you as Attorney General be comfortable defending a law that once again outlawed sodomy that questioned Lawrence again or Griswold or gay marriage that came from the state legislature to put to the test what Justice Thomas said? Yeah, I mean there's all kinds of issues here, but certainly the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don't think there was any constitutional provision dealing with. They were legislative issues and this is one of those issues and there may be more. So it would depend on the issue and depending on what state law says at the time and what was over there. Just for the sake of time here, you wouldn't rule out that if the state legislature passed the exact same law that Lawrence overturned on sodomy, you wouldn't have any problem then defending that and taking that case back to the Supreme Court. Yeah, look my job is to defend state law and I'll continue to do that. That is my job under the Constitution and I'm certainly willing to do that. Would you support the legislature or bringing that test? You know what? I don't know. I'd have to take a look at it. Like I said, this is all new territory for us. So I'd have to see, you know, how the legislation was laid out, whether we thought we could defend it. That's ultimately if it's constitutional, look, we're going to go we're going to go defend it. So that right there was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sending the bat signal to Texas Republican legislators saying, if you pass a law criminalizing gay intimacy, I will defend it. That's my job as attorney general. I'll defend that law. Now he's saying this, but before he didn't want to defend the Supreme Court when they said that marriage equality was a right. And there were certain districts that didn't want to issue out marriage licenses to same sex couples. But now he's saying, oh, no, I have to defend that law. So we're looking at a situation where within the next couple of years, states one by one, perhaps starting with Texas, might pass laws criminalizing sodomy. And if you think that this is above Ken Paxton, you'd be wrong because he was an individual who argued for their original sodomy law. As Alex Bollinger of LGBTQ Nation writes, Paxton, back when he was a Texas state representative, was one of several lawmakers who signed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to decide in favor of Texas's sodomy ban in Lawrence v. Texas. In the brief, Paxton and his colleagues argued that sodomy bans were required for protecting public health. One of the rational basis for enacting the ban was to protect public health from the very real danger of same sex sodomy, the brief states. Legislators are especially concerned for the health, safety and well-being of those who may seek to engage in same sex sodomy. The brief brings up statistics that show that HIV hit gay and bi men particularly hard, but does not show how sodomy laws, which make prevention and treatment measures for HIV more difficult, are related to this. Unless one were to assume that people actually decided not to be gay because of this law. The brief also argued that states have a right to encourage marriage and discourage activity outside of marriage and that the law is one part of a larger network of laws designed to further legitimate state interests of promoting traditional marriage of one man and one woman. Now keep in mind, sodomy refers to both oral and anal sex. So theoretically, this ban on sodomy could harm straight couples as well, but that's not really how the law is going to be applied. So the question is, how do you enforce a ban on sodomy? Because that's relatively difficult to do unless you're going to use technology. Which nowadays you could to spy on people in their own homes. Then I guess that's one way that you can enforce it. But another question is, why would you get rid of sodomy, ban sodomy, before you do away with same sex marriages? And honestly, they can go either way, they're both on the agenda. But if you keep same sex marriages, but criminalize sodomy first, that makes it a lot easier to enforce these sodomy laws. So let me explain. So let's go back to the original Lawrence v. Texas case. So in 1998, cops busted John Lawrence and Tyrone Garner after a neighbor called the cops on them claiming that there was some sort of domestic fight and claimed that there was somebody going crazy with the gun. Turns out that was a complete lie. But police entered the apartment without a warrant, by the way, caught Lawrence and his partner in the act, and they both were subsequently arrested. They were tried and convicted and each charged with $200 for violating the Texas law that prohibits, quote, deviant sexual intercourse. So even though in this instance, a gay couple was prosecuted, you have to imagine that prosecuting gay couples for sodomy was relatively rare because that's a very difficult thing to, you know, report that this is happening in the safety of people's home. So unless somebody sees them, well, it's hard to actually punish them for it. However, if you criminalize sodomy before you do away with same sex marriages, while these states like Texas that want to recriminalize sodomy, they have state records of every married couple, including same sex couples. So you can reasonably assume that those thousands of couples are intimate, right? And if they're intimate, but sodomy is illegal in the state of Texas, well, they can then go to these married couples and they can arrest them. So in theory, outlawing sodomy before you outlaw marriage equality makes these anti sodomy laws a lot easier to enforce because nobody would doubt that married couples are at least somewhat sexually intimate, right? So that's why it's not unimaginable to think that they would target recriminalizing gay intimacy first. Now, with all of the genocidal rhetoric that the GOP has been using, I don't actually think it's a stretch to imagine them doing a sort of gay witch hunt where they literally use the marriage licenses that the state issued to prosecute gay couples. So if you are a gay married couple, especially, you know, a gay same sex couple that's two males in one of these red states, you need to be wary of this, be mindful of what's to come in the next few years and acknowledge that the state could prosecute you for being a married couple if they recriminalize sodomy, because if there's this weird temporary gray area where sodomy is illegal, what gay marriages are not, well, you know, it's fine to be married so long as you're not intimate with your spouse. But we know what the state will want to do. They will want to crack down on these couples. Now, this is all theoretical at this point in time. Really, what we should be concerned about is the fact that they already want to recriminalize gay intimacy altogether, because that is incredibly draconian. I mean, to tell consenting adults what they can and can't do in the privacy of their homes that is tyrannical, that is authoritarian. But this GOP is out in the open saying that's kind of what we're going to do next. So buckle up. So it's really horrifying. So, you know, if you're a gay couple in the United States, especially if you're in a same sex relationship, if you're a man with another man, have an exit plan to get out of that state because we don't know how bad things are going to get. But just keep in mind that this is something that is on the horizon and they're already vocalizing what they want to do. So believe them when they say that criminalization of gay intimacy is coming.