Robert Gant Instagram – This photo was taken on today’s date, June 26th, in 2003, during the Houston nighttime Pride parade. It was the same day that the Supreme Court handed down Lawrence v Texas, the decision that overturned the sodomy laws in the U.S. (still remaining in 14 states at the time, including Texas). The ruling established the right for gay people in the United States TO HAVE CONSENSUAL SEX LEGALLY. (It also became the symbolic date on which the Court would later overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, aka DOMA, and affirm the right to same-sex marriage.) The decision in Lawrence was based on the same 5th and 14th Amendment reasoning that made up the foundation for Roe v. Wade. I made an appearance at a Houston nightclub that historic night and was in the DJ booth when the wonderful @djtracyyoung stopped the music so that, on the mic, I could remind everyone in the club that, for the first time since 1973 (and, in truth, long before), when the state of Texas had criminalized “homosexual conduct,” they could go home and legally have sex. The roar from the dance floor was deafening. Pure, unrestrained joy. That Texas law criminalizing “homosexual conduct,” while invalidated by the ruling in Lawrence, nonetheless remains a part of the Texas penal code. Lawrence v Texas is one of the cases that Justice Clarence Thomas proposes revisiting. The next chapter for all of us has begun. #Freedom #Equality #Pride #LGBTQ #LawrencevTexas #RoevWade