In Fair Bellville, Where We Lay Our Scene...
Bellville is a city in and the county seat of Austin County, Texas, in the southeastern part of the state.
The population was 3,794 at the 2000 census.
(For Context: The Census defines small towns as incorporated areas with 5,000 residents or fewer, and big cities as having populations of 50,000 or more. The Census defines midsize cities as having populations between 5,000-10,000 people
With so many “small towns,” the average local jurisdiction population in the United States is 6,200.)
On God
Texas remains one of the nation’s more “religious” states, even though a smaller proportion of Texans is affiliated with a congregation than ten years ago.
In 2010, the largest religious body in Texas was the Catholic Church with 4,673,500 adherents, with Southern Baptists in second place with 3,722,194. Non-denominational Christians followed with 1,546,542.
Can Love Be Love in Texas?
The Legality of Same Sex Marriage
2005: On November 8, 2005, Texas voters approved the Texas Proposition 2 that amended the Texas Constitution to define marriage as consisting "only of the union of one man and one woman" and prohibiting the state or any political subdivision of the state from creating or recognizing "any legal status identical or similar to marriage."
2015: Same-sex marriage became legal in the U.S. state of Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015
2025: Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, there has been speculation that other rights established/protected under the same rule of law could also be unraveled moving forward (Justice Thomas has publicly suggested as much) - among these, the right to contraception and same-sex/interracial marriage. We know Congress is working to pass a bill that would further codify protections for same-sex marriage, in order to combat potential Supreme Court actions in the next legislative session - but, suffice it to say, we have no way of knowing for sure what our landscape will look like in 2025, whether or not the freedoms we currently enjoy will still be in place.
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