ustxtxb_obs_1982_09_17_50_00011-00000_000.pdf

MARCH ON CAPITOL OPPOSE U.S. I$RAELI INVASION OF LEBANON sat. Sept. 18, 1 1 :30 a.m. Assemb: In front of Tx-Union & Guadalupe. Info. 512-478-6733. Printers Stationers Mailers Typesetters High Speed Web Offset Publication Press Counseling Designing Copy Writing Editing Trade Computer Sales and Services Complete Computer Data Processing Services *FUTURA PRESS AUSTIN TEXAS FlUIPTILJPRA 512/442-7836 1714 South Congress P.O.Box 3485 Austin, Texas 78764 the draft. Of the 530,400 males in Texas who were born between Jan. 1, 1960 and Mar. 31, 1963, 483,086, or 91%, have registered. This compares with the national sign-up rate of 93%. The Reagan Administration has filed its first criminal lawsuit in a policy of selective prosecution of non-registrants. The maximum penalty for failing to register is five years in jail and a fine of $10,000. Reagan opposed the registration plan when he was running for President. Sen. John Tower of Texas got a taker for his offer to speak out against the ratification of the balanced budget amendment before any state legislature as Tower voted in favor of the submission of that amendment to the states. “What brass,” wrote Dallas TimesHerald columnist Ron Calhoun. “If the amendment passes the U.S. House, I only hope the Texas legislature extends that invitation when it meets in 1983, the year before Sen. Tower is up for re election.” U.S. Sen. Bentsen of Texas also voted to submit the amendment. V On Aug. 17, Judge Jerry Buchmeyer struck down the Texas law that prohibits homosexual acts as a violation of the constitutional guarantees of privacy and equal protection under the law. If the ruling stands, Texas will become the 26th state that no longer prohibits homosexual conduct among consenting adults. Under the law in Texas, it has been a misdemeanor for persons of the same sex to engage in oral sex acts. “The right of privacy does extend,” the judge ruled, “to private sexual conduct between consenting adults whether husband and wife, unmarried males and females, or homosexuals and the right of equal protection condemns a state statute which prohibits homosexual sodomy, without any rational basis.” Agreeing with a psychiatrist and a sociologist who testified that homosexuality is neither a disease nor a mental disorder, Judge Buchmeyer said that if the Texas law were not put aside, “the state would have the same power to intrude into the private lives and bedrooms of heterosexuals and regulate the intimate sexual relationships of married couples and single males and females.” Atty. Gen. Mark White got in trouble with John Duncan of the Texas Civil Liberties Union when White said he was upset that the execution of Charles Bass was not carried out on death row in Huntsville as scheduled at midnight between Aug. 17 and 18. “The appeals go on and on forever,” White said. “It’s reckless and makes the justice system appear foolish. It’s more than an abuse of the judicial system.” “It appears that Mark White would like to kill somebody in his campaign for governor,” Duncan said. About 150 persons can be expected to be on death row in Texas when the next governor takes office. Both White and Clements favor capital punishment. The prevailing custom in Dallas is the election of a businessman mayor. The incumbent, Jack Evans, was caught up about this during an interview with the Dallas Times-Herald published Aug. 22. Asking whom he preferred as his successor, Evans named three businessmen and added a fourth: “I’d like to see a person like a Jack James that’s head of Dresser . . . or like the Erik Jonssonthe council-manager form of government.” He was asked: “The people you mentioned were all successful businessmen. . . . Is that the only type of mayor we can have, or by the very nature of it, does it preclude an average person from running for mayor because there’s no real salary to the job?” “I don’t think so,” Mayor Evans replied. “I think you take large corporations. You’ve got people who can take time away, that they would agree to it. That could happen, or you could take a professional entrepreneur who could do it. I can’t see a person working on a salary and not having any income other than what the city of Dallas pays, $50 per meeting, and be in a position to give the kind of time that’s required.” Asked whether this wasn’t “a really undemocratic sort of attitude,” Evans ducked. Asked if the mayor should not be paid a living-wage, Evans said, “I’d hate to see us do it. I think this type of government has been good for Dallas.” But he conceded $200 a week would be OK, both for the mayor and council members. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11