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Fear is an obstacle to gay rights, attorney says

'Time is on our side,' assures lawyer in sodomy case

By Geronimo Rodriguez
Senior Staff Writer

In Massachusetts Thursday, state lawmakers delayed their decision until March 11 on whether to continue banning gay marriage.

In San Francisco the same day, Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the county clerk to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

And in Houston on Thursday, attorney Mitchell Katine said gays and lesbians will soon cross the threshold that is equal rights if they shut fear out of their lives.

"How would your life be different if you lived without fear? I want to start a crusade to get this fear out of our lives," said Katine, who spoke at the University Center as part of a Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Alliance meeting.

Katine was the lawyer in the 1998 case Lawrence & Garner v. Texas, in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 28-year-old Texas law that made it illegal to engage in same-sex intercourse. They ruled that John Geddes Lawrence and his male partner, Tyron Garner, were denied due process after being arrested for engaging in sex in their home.

The decision reversed the court's 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick ruling upholding anti-sodomy laws in Georgia and the 12 other states that still had them on the books.

Along with discussing the decision's domino effect, Katine stressed the importance of examining court rulings, including gay marriage.

"You'll find that there's a changing of minds the more people talk," Katine said.

Katine, who lives in Houston and practices law at the Williams, Birnberg & Andersen firm, uses his lectures to address the logic behind court rulings that restrict gays and lesbians from getting fair treatment.

"Had John and Tyron been afraid, think of how long we would've waited to get things changed," Katine said, noting that four different sets of judges in Texas ruled against his clients before the case reached the Supreme Court.

Katine said the ruling amplified the idea that homosexuals do have rights, and it's up to younger generations to keep pressing until gays and lesbians get the same benefits of marriage as straight couples. Katine and his partner have two adopted 18-month-old Guatemalan children, Sabrina and Sebastian.

"But it's OK for straight people not to understand gays," he said. "I think time is on our side, and eventually everything will be OK."
 

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