A Texas Couple Denied Marriage Equality Under the Law

By my count, this is the thirty-second ongoing relationship I've covered through exclusive interviews in which the lovers are denied the freedom to be open about their love and are denied the freedom to marry and have that marriage treated equally under the law.

Jake and Alice are consenting adults who have a passionate love for each other. Yet they face discrimination and prejudice for their love.

Read the interview below and ask yourself if there is one good reason these two consenting adults should be denied their rights or should have to hide. [Bumping up due to a short update at the end.]


*****

FULL MARRIAGE EQUALITY: Describe your background.

Jake: I am a 20-year-old male from Miami, Florida currently relocated to the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. I am white, 6'1" with brown hair and green eyes, I consider myself to be attractive. I have always been active and involved in various sports. We live in a nice and quiet town in the suburbs I would describe us as upper-class.

Alice: I'm 35, the mother of one son. I work in real estate. I currently live with my son. I became pregnant at the age of 15. After my son was born, his father decided to leave and hasn't been a part of either of our lives since.

Possible GSA Case Makes News

Not everyone who is arrested or prosecuted for consensual sex is a sympathetic person overall. Sometimes, they've done other things that should continue to be crimes. Regardless of whether someone is a career criminal or a true pillar of the community, consensual relationships and sex between adults should not be a crime, and should not be fodder for ridicule in what are supposed to be serious news services. Stories like the one below are not justification to deny full marriage equality. For every situation like the one detailed below, there are many great people who are in consanguinamorous relationships and you never heard about them. Or, they are famous and admired, but their consanguinamory remains closeted.

Here is Lee Moran's article at nydailynews.com...

A Texas meth-head and his sister confessed to incest after they were caught passionately kissing in prison, police said.

Charlene Ellet, 25, and her brother Cameron Beck, 26, were allegedly busted locking lips between jail cell bars after getting arrested for possession of meth.

The Houston duo now faces prohibited sexual conduct charges on top of the initial drug allegations.

So this happened in Texas but is in a New York newspaper. Why?

Montgomery County Police Reporter said that the pair was picked up at a Wal-Mart on Friday after Ellet was caught stealing.

Deputies detained Beck, who'd driven his sister and her 2-year-old twin girls to the store, after finding traces of meth in his car.

Taken to Montgomery County Jail and placed in neighboring cells, deputies said they were stunned when the pair started kissing each other on the lips through the bars.

They should have learned from this. Texas is one of the worst states when it comes to consanguinamory. Here's why I think this is a possible case of Genetic Sexual Attraction...

Confirming they were siblings, Ellet said they had the same biological mom but that she had been adopted.

She revealed they struck up a pen pal relationship as Beck was in prison and hooked up on his release in November.

The couple lived in a motel room with Ellet's two daughters, and would often have sex behind a partition as the two girls watched TV.

Here's the coverage at examiner.com.

Here's the coverage at opposingviews.com.


Here's what appears to be the original source, montgomerycountypolicereporter.com.


And dailymail.co.uk had to carry it, too.

Another Marriage Denied Equality

By my count, this is the thirtieth ongoing relationship I've covered through exclusive interviews in which the lovers are denied the freedom to be open about their love and are denied their fundamental right to marry.

Chelsea is a bright young woman, legally free to marry a complete stranger. But she can't legally marry the man she is living with as husband and wife.

Read the interview below and ask yourself if there is one good reason these two consenting adults should be denied their right to marry. THIS INTERVIEW DOES GET SOMEWHAT SEXUALLY EXPLICIT.


*****


FULL MARRIAGE EQUALITY: Describe your background.

Chelsea: I am a college graduate at a major Texas University and majored in Business Administration and currently reside just outside of Dallas, with my father. I currently work for him in a manufacturing plant in an adviser capacity. I am 26 years old and originally from Oklahoma. Most of my family ties and friends from school still reside there. I have some English, Irish and a bit of Spanish in my blood. I am about 5 feet 9 inches and weigh about 145 lbs last time I weighed myself.  I am a big-boned girl, so I will never be considered petite.  I love to eat, so it is always a battle to keep my weight down. I topped off at about 165 lbs periodically in my life, so far.  I have medium brown hair but sometimes have dyed it black.

I have one older brother.

My mom divorced dad when I was much younger and lives near Oklahoma City with her husband. I have sporadic contact with them.

I like bowling, hiking and volleyball. I also love to travel, usually on business trips with my dad. I love to sing, but will never make it as the next American Idol, but do belt out a few songs on karaoke night at local clubs.

Anonymous Dad: She is a lot to love and I love her a lot!  She is smart, witty but can't sing worth a lick, but then again I am no Frank Sinatra either.

Fired Up in Texas

From khou.com comes a report that a man is accused of arson for setting fire to a place he shared with his wife. What does that have to do with this blog? Well, read four yourself....

There were words painted on the drive way that said “___  sleeps with mom happy b day,” court documents stated.

Edwardo Saldana’s wife said they had separated and that he had recently moved back into her home. The couple had gone to Galveston with her son to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

Saldana’s wife said they got into an argument and he took the only vehicle and left everyone else in Galveston.

Saldana later told a work supervisor that he found his wife and stepson in a room with their pants down and that he got scared and left, but went to the house where he poured gasoline in the bedrooms and burned furniture on the patio, according to court documents.

I'm guessing Saldana wouldn't have consented to a polyamorous or open relationship, at least not involving his stepson.

Would an arsonist lie? Consensual incest allegations are no small matter in Texas, which actually has a law criminalizing sex even between first cousins, even though heterosexual first cousins can legally marry in about half of US states. If there is something going on between the mother and son, they should keep quiet about it because it sounds like the only witness is a guy who has issues with the law himself.

Taking a Swing Through Austin, Texas

Hump Day is The Daily Texan's weekly sex and sexuality column. In this edition, they covered swinging in Austin, Texas.

Not to be confused with polyamory, which is when a person practices both sexual and emotional relationships with multiple people, swingers are usually couples looking to have sexual relations with other couples or with other single parties. Some couples will keep swinging with their same partners multiple times, while other couples will choose different partners each time they swing for different experiences.

That's a pretty good explanation.

The methods that couples use to find their other partners differs within swinging culture. Craigslist, although very direct, can be fruitless when people replying to listings may not may not be as be physically stunning as they advertised. A more personal and natural way of exploring swinging choices is to go to either a swingers club or a house party.


Clubs tend to be more open to new members, but house parties require an invitation. There are also membership fees for clubs and the atmosphere in clubs and house parties tend to differ.

The article has some explanation and advice for swinging that is applicable to many other places. Silly laws often impose some restrictions in some places, like barring certain sex acts (like anything involving genitalia) at the clubs, so officially the clubs in those places are limited to being meet-up/conversation facilities. Swinging definitely isn't for everyone, but some people enjoy it, and consenting adults should not be restricted by the hangups, tastes, and prejudices of people who are not even there.

Texas GSA Couple Back in the News

For some reason, another news outlet re-ran an article on Clara Collins and her biological son Trent Holmes. I previously blogged about this article here.

But since the article was printed again and people are looking for information on Collins and Holmes, I'll say it again: an adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any consenting adults. There's no reason why these two shouldn't be free to legally marry.

There's much to blog, and I hope to crank out several blog entries over the next few days.

Deep in Their Hearts in Texas

Congratulations to Clara Collins and Trent Holmes for coming out. From the Zimbabwe Mail comes this apparent case of Genetic Sexual Attraction (I have retained apparent typing errors in the article as I found it)…

This is a real life story about a 49 year old Texas woman Clara Collins who gave up her son Trent Holmes for adoption and 24 years later the boy turned up at her door-step looking for her real mum in November 2008, it was "love at the first sight" and the pair have been living together as partners.

Lara Collins insists the moment she said "I do" to her husband is the proudest of her life-despite the fact she gave birth to him.

Incredibly, she says there is nothing sick about her relationship with son Trent Holmes, 27, because she gave him up for adoption as a baby and never raised him.

She’s right that there’s nothing sick about it, but I would say that even if there had been an existing social mother-son relationship. An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any consenting adults.

Brazenly, the 49 year old who was reunited with ehr son three years ago and immediately fancied him - even admits their sex life is the "best ever" and says she feels no shame, even though their "marriage" is deemed illegal because of the incest laws.

The laws are wrong. There is no legitimate reason to criminalize this, or deny them the right to marry. As far as the sex, it is typical for people in consanguinamorous relationships to experience more intense lovemaking than with any other relationship they’ve have.

Clara says: "I know people will be disgusted, but I have a wonderful fulfilling sexual relationship with Trent. I was shocked by my feelings to start with, but I know this can happen between parents and children when they've grown up apart. I've never been happier - and the sex is mind-blowing!"

Good for them.

For years Clara wrote letter to her son, but never heard a word from him or his adoptive family. She tried to move on, but never settled in a stable relationship or had more kids.

Then, three years ago, in November 2008, Trent, then 24, appaered at her door.

"I saw a tall, dark-haired man standing there. My heart skipped a beat and I knew he was my son. He had my smile and mum's eyes," Clara says. "He confirmed who he was and I felt an explosion of joy and hugged him."

But, incredibly, she faced unexpected emotions. she was hugely attracted to him. She explains: "I couldn't take my eyes off him - he was gorgeous. One moment I felt he was my son, the next I fanced him. It horrified me."

Do people in Texas really use “fancied,” and “mum,” or is that quote a paraphrase by the writer? Maybe I just don’t know my ass from my arse or bum. I shouldn't get my knickers in a wad about it. Anyway, the feelings, which sound like GSA, are not uncommon with reunions like this one.

Texas Anti-marriage Law Challenged

The Browns are challenging the Utah law against the polygamous freedom of association, but there’s also a challenge to Texas’ bigamy law.

Unlike other Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints men charged in Texas, 70-year-old Wendell Nielsen is not accused of marrying underage girls. Instead, the three felony bigamy charges against him are focused on women ages 66, 56 and 43.

In newly filed court documents in Schleicher County, Nielsen’s attorneys argue that the law unfairly targets groups with a religious belief in plural marriage. They quote a landmark decision that struck down the state’s sodomy law, Lawrence v. Texas.

"The bigamy statute appears to be nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to ‘use the power of the state to enforce [majority views regarding morality] on the whole society through the operation of criminal law’ and as such cannot survive even minimal scrutiny," according to a motion to quash Nielsen’s indictment filed this week.

The more people think it through, the more they realize how ridiculous it is to try to stop consenting adults from having relationships. And when they think it through more, they also realize it is unfair to deny the freedom to marry.

In a separate argument, Nielsen’s attorneys claimed the bigamy law is unfairly enforced and unconstitutional because it applies only to certain groups.

The law, for example, would not apply to three women living together who consider themselves married, or three men in the same situation, attorneys wrote, because marriage in Texas can only be between a man and a woman, and the bigamy statute requires that the accused is legally married to one person.

Let’s make it simple by recognizing that an adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any consenting adults. State lawmakers could save everyone so much trouble and free up the courts by supporting these basic human rights instead of trying to punish people on an arbitrary basis over the person or persons they love. Yes, some bigots will cry. They'll get over it, just like they got over desegregation.

Prejudice Leads to Ridiculous Statements

Here’s a sickening story of alleged abuse out of Anderson County, Texas. Stick with me on this. This is relevant to this blog’s topic.

A fourth person has been arrested in connection to a child sexual assault case involving an East Texas preacher.

Karen Sapp, 25, is charged with injury to a child.

Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor says Sapp knew the girl was being assaulted and did not report the abuse.

Someone who knows a child is being abused and does nothing about it is a horrible person. Someone who is supposed to have your back and stands by as you are abused or assaulted is a horrible, horrible person.

A case that began with a young girl's preacher, 68-year-old, Larry Gene Martin, who's accused of molesting her at the family's home.

At the time, Martin, who pastored at Faith Bible Church in Palestine, was living at the child's home with her parents and two brothers.

As the investigation continued, Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor says her parents became suspects.

Why? This is why…

Sheriff Taylor believes [her parents] encouraged the relationship.

If that is true, they are evil people. And that's not a relationship. That's a crime.

Authorities say the child was yet again failed by a close, family friend.

According to court documents, authorities collected photographs and computer chats that implies Sapp knew of the abuse, but did not report it.

That would also be evil.


Here comes the part of the article that baffles me.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of this case, says Taylor, are allegations of incest.

"There is some allegations that some sexual assault occurred between--or sexual contact between her and her next to the oldest brother, which is a little younger than her.”

So if she and her brother, who is younger than her and thus a minor, had sex, that is supposed to be the worst of it? Even if it was assault, how could be worse than her own parents, who are supposed to protect her, encouraging some creepy old minister to rape her? If she had loving sex with her younger brother, and that’s what I hope it was, it would be some much-needed comfort, given that the adults around her were allegedly such monsters. Yet, it is presented by law enforcement and journalists as somehow the worst part about the whole thing. That is what bigotry towards consanguineous sex does.

It would have been nice if the journalists had gotten Taylor to clarify whether the situation with her brother was a matter of sex or if it was assault. There’s an enormous difference between those things, even if bigots like to pretend consanguineous sex is abuse.

If these four adults are guilty, they should do some hard time. If she and her brother end up together, they shouldn't even have so much as a funny look from the authorities.

Consensual Polygamy is Not Abuse

Referring to Warren Jeffs, Lorne Gunter writes about not liking the FLDS, how things are in Bountiful, nor how the RCMP has responded to allegations of abuses.

But then again, dawdling has long characterized the way B.C. childwelfare officials and Mounties have treated allegations against Bountiful's domineering leaders. Fearful of upsetting the leaders' Charter right to religious freedom, police and bureaucrats have been slow to the point of inert when looking into complaints that children and women have been physically and psychologically abused there.

It would be easier for the authorities to investigate and prosecute abuse if marriages between adults were not criminalized. If adults were free to marry any consenting adults with government sanction and protection instead of prosecution, witnesses would be more forthcoming.

I can see where the courts might accept the argument that polygamy in and of itself is not abusive - that consenting adults could enter into such weird and creepy relationships of their own free-will.

“Weird and creepy?” I wonder what Gunter’s relationships and personal life are like, and if there are people who would think any aspect is weird and creepy? At least Gunter can see that courts might understand polygamy isn’t inherently abusive.

That commentary drew a letter from Nancy Mereska, president of Stop Polygamy in Canada. I can see Stop Domestic Violence or Stop Child Abuse, but Stop Polygamy? Why does Mereska care so much what relationships other consenting adults have? And does she really have it out for polygamy (would she be against, say, a woman marrying two women), or just polygyny? Anyway, in the letter she writes…

The international convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women discusses polygamy and says that parties should prohibit it because of its harm to women and children.

Isn’t is discrimination against women to tell them they can’t marry the person(s) they want?

The international Convention on the Rights of the Child says a child has a right to know its parents. In polygamy the father is absent.

With full marriage equality, polygamy could be a matter of law; polygamy means marriage. That’s hardly being absent. Notice she does not mention that it is perfectly legal for men to have children with multiple women, as long as he is only married to one at a time, if at all.

In polygamy, women's and children's rights are diminished measurably.

How so? She doesn’t say. She simply asserts it. And diminished compared to what? Certainly not women and children who have been abandoned by deadbeats.

It really isn’t complicated. An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with any consenting adults. Domestic violence and child abuse should be prosecuted. What is the problem with taking an approach like that?

Congratulations to Penny Lawrence and Garry Ryan

Genetic Sexual Attraction is making news again as another happy GSA (apparently) couple comes out.

The Irish Sun splashed this morning with the exclusive story of Garry Ryan, 46, and his long-lost daughter Penny Lawrence, 28, who met last year when Lawrence tracked Ryan down. He had been born in Palmerstown in Dublin but moved with his family to the US when he was two. He made Lawrence’s mother Angela pregnant when he was 18 but left her before their baby, Penny, was born.

Angela died when Penny was four and her maternal grandparents, who raised her, died when she was 18. Lawrence said she became “obsessed” with finding her only remaining close blood relative, her father. Last March she tracked him down to Houston, Texas and after several daily phonecalls, flew there from LA to surprise him.

She now reports she is pregnant by him.

Ryan said that he realises that their relationship is illegal and they are afraid that they will be ordered apart by the courts. But he added:

“It’s no different than if I met Penny in a bar. I’d have fallen for her as I have now. It doesn’t feel we are doing anything wrong.”

It shouldn’t be illegal. They are consenting adults who should be allowed to marry.

Lawrence said that when she first made contact with her estranged father, he had told her he had always felt guilty for leaving her and her mother. He explained:

“I was an 18-year-old kid and when Angela told me she was pregnant I wanted to do the right thing. We decided to get married but Angela’s parents disapproved of the relationship and didn’t want me around.”

The interference of Angela's parents was unfortunate, but nothing can be done to change the past. It is the future that matters. We wish them the best as a consanguinamorous couple and family.

UPDATE: If you want to discuss the consanguinamorous relationship between Penny Lawrence and Garry Ryan (or your own) in an environment that isn’t antiequality, you can do so in this thread at the Incestuous Lovers forum. You have to register (no cost) with the forum to be able to read and respond.

Texas Bigamy Law

Two men were recently sentenced to prison on bigamy charges. They were also sentenced for sexual assault of a child. If they were already going to prison for child abuse, why the bigamy charges and sentencing? It is difficult to care much about a child abuser, but these laws preventing the freedom or marry can be used against anyone.

Both men belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which teaches that plural marriage brings glorification in heaven. Members have been reluctant to talk publicly about such unions, in part because Texas' bigamy statute makes it illegal to even purport to marry more than one person. Many of the FLDS unions are only church-sanctioned, not legally documented, marriages.

So in Texas, it is illegal to even say you are married to more than one person. This needs to change.

I will keep pointing to real people being hurt by a lack of full marriage equality. If Texas had full marriage equality, there also wouldn't be this problem with divorcing married couples of the same-sex.