Officer Suspended for Comment to Gay Couple

Remnants left over from the old days. Ten years ago, the trooper would have had cause to arrest the couple for kissing in public. There couldn’t be any outward form of expression for gay people in Texas. I don't believe there was a specific law addressing kissing, but it would have been prosecuted as “lewd conduct” or some such charge. It’s kind of hard to imagine. And we still called ourselves a “free society”.

A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper has been placed on probation for telling two gay men who were kissing at the state Capitol that homosexual conduct was illegal in Texas.

Trooper Michael Carlson was placed on job probation for six months and given a written reprimand, DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said Friday. Carlson, who has been a DPS trooper for three years, also has been ordered to have more training on Texas laws.

Texas law does not prohibit gays from kissing. Also, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s anti-sodomy law in June 2003. [...]

Corvino (one of the men involved) said he tried to tell Carlson that they were not breaking the law, but he said the trooper told them again that “homosexual conduct is against the law.”

“We won’t have you doing this on Capitol grounds,” Carlson told the men, according to the complaint. (source)