Texas lawmakers have had 23 years to erase the sodomy law the Supreme Court struck down in 2003. They still haven’t. Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas, is trying again with House Bill 653, filed ahead of the legislative session that starts in January.
The first section is just one sentence: “Section 21.06, Penal Code, is repealed.” But the two-page bill leaves other anti-gay language in place. As filed, HB 653 would stop education materials from calling homosexuality a crime while still requiring them to describe it as unacceptable. Jones told KXAN he plans to revisit that wording.
What the Unenforceable Law Still Says
The statute runs two sentences. “A person commits an offense if he engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex,” reads the state’s online Penal Code. It’s a Class C misdemeanor, the lowest grade of crime in Texas.
Lawmakers passed it in 1973. Right under it, the code now carries a note: “Section 21.06 was declared unconstitutional by Lawrence v. Texas, 123 S.Ct. 2472.”
That case began when Harris County officers answered a reported weapons disturbance at a private home and arrested two men. “The petitioners, having entered a plea of nolo contendere, were each fined $200 and assessed court costs of $141.25,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the June 26, 2003, opinion.
Kennedy’s majority overturned Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 ruling that upheld Georgia’s sodomy law after Michael Hardwick’s arrest in Atlanta. “Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today,” he wrote.
What HB 653 Leaves Behind
The problem turns up twice in the Health and Safety Code. Both sections refer back to the unconstitutional ban. Jones’ bill removes those references, but it leaves the value judgments attached to them.
Section 85.007, in the state’s HIV law, covers education materials for people under 18. Under the bill, those materials would still have to “state that homosexual conduct is not an acceptable lifestyle.” Only the clause “and is a criminal offense under Section 21.06, Penal Code” would go.
Section 163.002 lists what sex education courses must include. Course materials would still stress “that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public.” Again, just the criminal-offense reference gets struck.
Jones’ 2025 bill, HB 1738, made the same edits, its House-passed text shows. Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, goes further in 2027. His Senate Bill 143 drops the “acceptable” language entirely. It also repeals Family Code sections 2.001(b) and 6.204, which deal with same-sex marriage.
The House Passed Repeal in 2025
Jones has talked openly about being Black, LGBT and HIV positive. In a 2022 Dallas Morning News story, he said that experience taught him “about the importance of representation.”
In 2025, HB 1738 became the first repeal bill to pass the full Texas House, KXAN reported. The final vote was 59-56, according to The Texas Tribune.
Republican Rep. Brian Harrison of Midlothian signed on as a co-author. “Criminalizing homosexuality is not the role of government, and I support repealing it,” Harrison said in a statement reported by the Tribune.
Jones also warned that dead laws can come back. The Tribune pointed to Attorney General Ken Paxton reviving an old abortion statute after Roe v. Wade fell in 2022.
“It was already past time to do this, and now even more so,” Jones said.
Justice Clarence Thomas supplied another reason for concern in 2022. In his Dobbs concurrence, he wrote that the court “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” He was writing for himself. The majority did not overturn those decisions, and Lawrence still bars Texas from enforcing its ban on consensual same-sex intimacy.
Where the Last Repeal Effort Stalled
HB 1738 stalled in the Senate, where it waited weeks for a committee referral before missing key deadlines, KXAN reported. Sen. Molly Cook, D-Houston, filed the companion, Senate Bill 2723.
Texas Values was the only group to testify against the House bill. Policy director Jonathan Covey told a House committee the group wanted to send a “message that (homosexual conduct) is not acceptable,” KXAN reported.
KXAN counted at least 60 attempts to repeal the law since the 1980s. The House finally passed one in 2025, but the Senate never sent it to the governor.
A Different Legislature in 2027
Jones will return to a different House in January. Democrats won control on Nov. 3 for the first time in more than two decades, KXAN reported. They also won the governor’s office, with Gina Hinojosa defeating Greg Abbott.
Democrat Vikki Goodwin also defeated Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. She’ll preside over a Senate where Republicans still hold 19 of 31 seats.
The 90th Legislature convenes Jan. 12, 2027. HB 653 provides for an immediate effective date if it wins two-thirds of all members in each chamber. Otherwise, if enacted, it would take effect Sept. 1, 2027.
