Texas may strip away transgender marriage rights

Two years ago Governor Rick Perry signed a bill regarding marriage licensing rules for county and district clerks. Some how the Governor missed a provision in the bill allowing transgender people with a court order as proof of their sex-change to obtain a marriage license. Now, Republican lawmakers are trying to turn back time to strip this away. Rick Perry stated that "he never intended to allow transgender people to get married. The provision was sneaked through on a larger piece of legislation". Really, Rick? I personally, wouldn't sign off on a bill that I was not sure of everything in it. I do not care how long it would take to read. To go back on something that was put in place two years ago is absurd.

This is also completely discriminating. A sex-change may not completely change a persons make up, but it does enough to allow them to be considered the goal sex of the operation. Who is to say these people are not the sex they are trying so hard to be? I believe you are born the way you are, gay, straight, bi-sexual, etc., it is not by a choice you make out of the blue at some point in life. This feeling is embedded in you from the day you entered this world. Transgender people are just trying to match their outside to their inside. As with gay marriage, these people are not hurting anyone. They are just trying to live their lives as the rest of the non-transgender or non-gay population. Why should government be allowed to keep them from this? If you don't like it, don't involve yourself, but don't keep people in this community from living their lives as the rest of us just because you personally wouldn't do.

2012-2013 Budget Cuts

Researching a topic for this assignment was difficult for me until I came across an article in The Austin American Statesman about the 2012-2013 budget cuts. Generally, that is not an article I would choose to read. I like more relatable articles. Tonight I chose to read it just off the cuff, and what did I realize? This type of topic is extremely relevant to me! Some of the deepest cuts will be to public education, health and human services, and other programs. Now this article I read doesn't really say what the other cuts are but the first two are enough for me to care. We are by far one of the last states that should be cutting spending on public education. Education is one of the most important things in life. It is, in most cases, a tool that keeps people on their feet and able to live without really struggling or living off the health and human services of the state. This ironically, is an area that will suffer major cuts too. This includes family planning. When most hear family planning they might think abortion services and the like. That's not it, it provides services such as cancer screenings, mammograms and Pap smears. Things that are detrimental to women's health. Over 200,000 women were provided such services as these that would be lost. These were the two most important things to me and that made me really mad because I have a baby, that will be in school one day and will need the best education he can get and he deserves it. I am also female, so that goes without explanation how family planning relates to me. The state government, AKA Republicans who practically run the whole house and refuse to budge on anything, need to find and consider different ways to bring more money into the budget or use more money from the state's huge rainy day fund we all hear so much about.