Inequality in Texas Again?

      Once again I'm here with another inequality issue in Texas, but this week it's about equal pay for women. From one article I read on The Burnt Orange Report titled Op-ed: Raise the MInimum Wage in Texas I learned that in Texas women are still facing wage discrimination even 100 years after Susan B. Anthony helped women win the right to vote. Texas State Senator Sylvia R. Garcia recently said, "that a woman makes 79 cents to every one dollar a man make and that African American and Latina women make even less." I really disagree with what is happening to women in Texas. Women make up a majority of the work force which only leads me to believe that they are the ones supporting the Texas economy. Texas needs to make equal wages law no matter gender, race, or any other reason. I think that the inequality is unconstitutional and something must be done to help the welfare of Texas as a whole.

      If there anything that the Texas government can do it would not only be to make pay equal for both women and men but another idea would be to also raise minimum wage. This would be the constitutional thing to do but also very beneficial to the economy here in Texas. I know that women  make up a large part of the money being spent here in Texas but yet many of these women fall under the poverty line. This is unacceptable for the women of Texas. Making wages equal won't be the final solution but it would be a huge step in the right direction.

Marriage Equality in Texas

              Equality seems to be an issue in more than one sense right now in Texas. One major aspect troubling Texas that needs to be addressed is marriage equality. I was very interested in the point raised in Jaren Lynch's blog titled, Gay-Marriage Equality in Texas. The point Jaren raises is that no matter straight or gay it's unconstitutional to deny someone the right to marry the person they love. I completely agree with this argument and am glad to see people fighting for their rights. I live with my girlfriend currently and if we decided to marry and were denied by the law of the state we live in that would be extremely upsetting.
              One argument I could think to raise would be, I don't believe that states should have laws banning same-sex marriage if the national government must already recognize same-sex marriage anyway. Our fore-fathers wrote the US Constitution with the intention of making a nation built off of Equality and that is what every American should be fighting for.

Legalizing it, in Texas

        In 2012, according to the Texas Department of Pub­lic Safety, 57% of the 116,634 adult arrests for drug possession, and a astonishing 81% of the 8,132 juvenile arrests for drug possession, were for possession of pot. Consider a low-level offender popped for pot and sentenced to a year in county jail – in Austin that costs taxpayers an average of $38,548 per inmate per year. If Texas were to legalize the use and possession of marijuana and hemp this would not only make the state a substantial amount of revenue but it would also benefit Texas taxpayers by saving them a large sum of money per year. It would also relieve some of the major over-crowding that Texas jails are experiencing. Under Texas law a conviction could follow that person by not allowing them the to go the college, or even get a well-paying job. This is not only detrimental to the people be convicted but also to the Texas taxpayers and even the Texas economy itself. According the Huffington Post, in the first month Colorado topped over $14 million dollars in its sale of marijuana for recreational use. Texas a much larger state could possibly even make more than that.
        Another positive would be the medicinal benefits for cancer and AIDS patients. Marijuana is much less harmful to the body than Chemo Therapy, radiation treatments, or even strong narcotics when ingested orally through food or essential oils and not smoked. There are countless medicinal qualities associated with marijuana including eating disorders, pain, anxiety, and sleeping disorders. The legalization of marijuana could potentially be a major cash crop for Texas farmers and the economy. Some believe that decriminalization is "on tap" for the 2015 legislative session. That is a step in the right direction but there is much more work to be done for the legalization of marijuana in Texas.