Texas House votes to repeal state’s unconstitutional ban on gay sex

The Texas House voted 72-55 Thursday to grant preliminary approval to a bill to repeal the state’s unconstitutional and unenforceable law criminalizing gay sex.

House Bill 1738 would strike a 1973 ban on “homosexual conduct” from state statute more than two decades after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the law violated the U.S. Constitution. The proposal is expected to pass on a final vote this Friday.

Twelve Republicans crossed the aisle to vote in favor of the legislation, authored by Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas, Texas’ first openly HIV-positive lawmaker and vice chair of the House’s LGBTQ Caucus.

“Working on this bill has been a one step at a time process, for so long,” Jones said, according to the Texas Tribune. “I am standing on the shoulders of people who have carried this bill before me, and that’s where I get my strength.”

A similar bill failed to pass the House before a significant deadline last session, making Thursday’s vote the closest a repeal of the 1973 law has made it through the Texas Legislature, the Tribune also reports.

A companion bill in the Senate hasn’t yet received a committee hearing, the Dallas Morning News reports. Further, the repeal bill is unlikely to pick up momentum in the Senate in the flurry of activity before the session wraps up on June 2, according to the Tribune.

Even so, Jones hailed the winning House vote as a history-making event.

“For the first time, the House voted to repeal Texas’ unconstitutional ‘homosexual conduct’ law,” the bill author said in a tweet. “This law has been unenforceable for over 20 years, but still sits on our books as a symbol of state-sanctioned discrimination.”

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This article appears in May 14-27, 2025.