Rep. Stuart Spitzer (TP- Kaufman) wants to cut $3 million from programs to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.  Spitzer instead wants Texas to spend that money on abstinence education – something even he admits has not been particularly effective. Texas has the third highest HIV infection rate in the U.S. and the fifth highest rate for teen pregnancy.  But these daunting statistics did not prevent the GOP-dominated House from overwhelmingly approving Spitzer’s budget amendment.  But that did not happen until Spitzer had made a fool of himself in verbal jousting with Democrats opposed to the measure.

Spitzer, a surgeon, proclaimed that his personal goal “is for everybody to be abstinent until they’re married.”  Spitzer then backed up his wishful thinking about controlling other people’s sex lives with an example from his own personal experience. Spitzer extolled the virtues of abstinence by telling his fellow Legislators that he practiced abstinence until marriage.

“What’s good for me is good for a lot of people,” argued Spitzer.

Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) then asked Spitzer if abstinence worked for him.

“It did. I’ve had sex with one woman in my life and that’s my wife,” Spitzer answered alsco claiming that he was a virgin at age 29 when he got married, and that his decision not to have premarital sex enabled him to become a surgeon and state representative.

Dutton wasn’t through Spitzer yet, “Is that the first woman you asked?” Dutton asked.

Spitzer kept digging the hole deeper, when claimed that sexual intercourse was the only way to contract STDs.

“If you think you can’t get an STD without having sex, maybe we need to educate you on how to get STDs,” said Rep. Nicole Collier (D-Fort Worth).

Texas Tea Partisans can hardly wait to jump on the so-called religious freedom bandwagon, despite the backlash seen in Indiana and Arkansas.  Texas Rep. Matt Krause (TP – Fort Worth) has proposed a constitutional amendment that would require Texas to have a “compelling governmental interest” before it can “burden in any way” a person’s free exercise of religion.   The Huffington Post explains how Krause justifies his plan:

“Should a Jewish bakery have to bake a cake for the neo-Nazi convention coming into town? Nobody would say that. Nor would anybody say a gay florist couple has to give flowers to a Westboro Baptist protest at funerals.” 

If this passes, Red will no longer be required to provide services to any who disagree with him because his religious beliefs are such that any one who holds an opinion different than him is in the possession of the Devil.

Mimi Schwartz questions Ted Cruz’s Texan identity and bona fides.

Aside from those ubiquitously noted black ostrich-skin cowboy boots, Mr. Cruz is about as traditional a Texas politician as Ralph Nader. Yes, Mr. Cruz gets credit for his colorful language, though his is more in the style of a Southern Baptist preacher than an acerbic West Texas wildcatter. And yes, he self-identifies as an outsider and an individualist.

Mr. Cruz did not grow up in the same state as L.B.J. or even Rick Perry, who stepped down in January after 14 years as governor. Their Texas was predominantly rural — poor, isolated, unique. The landscape and climate shaped not only their language and culture, but also their politics: L.B.J. saw Hill Country deprivation and wanted to alleviate it; Mr. Perry’s D.I.Y. worldview and his passion for economic prosperity (his own, especially) can be traced to his escape from Paint Creek. The anti-intellectualism of Midland shaped George W. Bush far more than his family compound in Kennebunkport, Me., did.

Mr. Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, to an Irish- and Italian-American mom and a Cuban-exile dad. By the time the family got to Houston, Texas was nearing the end of its transition to an urban state. The population boom that attended the oil boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s turned a conservative Democratic Texas into an even more conservative Republican stronghold.

Mr. Cruz was raised in the churchy suburb of Katy, and attended the private Second Baptist in Houston for high school, a training ground for ambitious, religious and determinedly prosperous community leaders. He wasn’t deprived or isolated; he had TV and afterschool activities. He became a passionate follower of Milton Friedman, which isn’t exactly common in Texas high schools (compared with, say, football). A great many Texans were starting to shove their progeny toward the Ivy League by the ’80s, so no shame was affixed to Mr. Cruz’s schooling at Princeton and Harvard Law School.

If you want to spot a faux Texan, just look down.  Very likely they will be wearing some fancy cowboy boots that haven’t ever touched anything but carpet and pavement.