Texas, The Fascist Regime

I’m sure that little tidbit above is not new information to many people who reside in Texas, especially if you happen to be a parent, gay, poor or not have a ‘typical’ family life. L-rd help you if you happen to be any combination of the above listed, because the great state of Texas will not look upon you kindly. This I know from first hand experience. My family: hubby and I are parents, he happens to be gay, we do fall into the category of being poor and we don’t have a ‘typical’ family. This makes us criminal in the eyes of the extremely conservative and oppressive lawmakers of Texas. For those of you wondering, yes I am making vague references to the legal issues I’ve been dealing with for the past year. The state has actually run out of reasons to keep this case open… well legitimate reasons that is, as long as my husband is gay and we don’t have a cookie-cutter family they will not view us as anything but WRONG and will go out of their way to keep this case open. It’s amazing what unchecked power some departments in the State of Texas have. I have been stunned and disgusted by what the State of Texas has been allowed to force us to do. Yes force us to do. And without the benefit of any kind of representation. Innocent until proven guilty does not apply in all circumstances. In this case it was guilty with out benefit of being able to prove our innocents. There is so much misinformation and out right lies involved in this legal issue, but the state has no intentions of correcting any of it, after all if they did then it would prove our innocents in this issue. The absolute worst part is that we have virtually NO recourse in this matter. The laws protect this particular department of the State of Texas. We don’t even have the legal right to know exactly what we were accused of (we do know, we found out many months into this issue). Also the State of Texas can add allegations to the list against us, they don’t even have to have proof, just by virtue of them being who they are their word is taken as gospel truth. Our only option has been to hire a lawyer and comply with their demands. Our lawyer has just managed to keep the list of demands to a minimum. Even at that it’s still been an ongoing list of services that for SOME reason never seems to end. The service providers are baffled as to why we are continually subjected to the services and all of them end up saying the same thing, that there is no reason for us to be in the services and this is just a waste of resources by the State. Two professionals who were providing services actually refused to see us any longer unless the State could give compelling reasons for us to continue. Miraculously those services were listed as complete at our next hearing.

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing (vaguely at that) about my legal issues. Because I had my weekly visit from the State and was told that our case isn’t scheduled to be closed until the beginning of August. Yet again they are extending the length of the case. Our last hearing at the beginning of May should have been our final hearing, but the State put yet a new person in charge of our case (this is the 4th person to be on this case) and one of the lawyers for the State intimated that if we just complied this time for the extension we could be back in court next month (this month) and it would be the end. The new person on this case told me the first time she came for her visit that she didn’t think this would end for a few months. August would be 3 months of her being on this case. So next week we go to court knowing that this is just another day to waste time and incur more legal fees, as the case won’t be ending anytime before August. Great at least 2 more times in court… and at $250 an hour… each court hearing lasts from an hour and a half to 4 hours… we will be out a minimum of $500, I don’t even want to imagine what the maximum could be. The amount of money we have spent on lawyer fees could have bought us a new car (something we desperately need). Do I think this case will be over in August? No, I think the State will drag this out as long as possible (a full 18 months). Maybe we will be done with all of this by this Christmas.

The really sick part is how much of my tax dollars has gone to this.