Committed to the Law.

Committed to Texas.

Dedicated to Justice.

As a lawyer, Charles Spain has built a career on a deep understanding of the law and experience with our court system, earning the respect of his colleagues. As a judge for the City of Houston, he treated people from all walks of life with dignity and respect. As a citizen, he serves his community and is a tireless advocate for justice. As an out LGBTQ appellate judge, he’s dedicated to ensuring that all parties are treated with fundamental fairness, doing “equal right to the poor and to the rich.”

Love & Law

Charles Spain’s election to the 14th Court of Appeals caps a legal career centered on civil rights for all.

By Deborah Lynn Blumberg

It was summer 1986 in Waco, Texas, when Charles Spain ’81 walked into the family law class he was taking at Baylor University, fuming.

Earlier that morning, the U.S. Supreme Court had announced its decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, a case in which an Atlanta resident arrested in his home for sodomy sued Georgia’s attorney general, claiming the state’s sodomy statute violated its constitution. At the time, sodomy was a felony under Georgia law. The Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s state law by a vote of 5–4.

Spain remembers saying to his classmates, “I just want to tell everyone that the U.S. Supreme Court has handed down one of the worst decisions in the entire history of the court.” At the time, it was a brave statement for Spain, who hadn’t come out to his classmates, his professors or even his parents. In 1973, Texas had made “homosexual conduct” a criminal act, though a Class C misdemeanor. It wasn’t until 2003 that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Texas state law criminalizing homosexual sex between consenting adults.

That summer, Spain got angry. He was angry about the Supreme Court decision and angry that during the AIDS epidemic, it felt taboo to talk about the disease. Organizing AIDS education at Baylor was unthinkable, he says. When finding himself at such crossroads, he’s learned to ask himself, “What are you going to do about it?”

Spain chose to become an advocate for civil rights, and he’s carried that conviction with him throughout his career. His accomplishments include co-founding the first LGBT section of a state bar in the nation and working on the national level to end the Boy Scouts’ ban on gay Scouts and leaders. He was also instrumental in getting the Confederate battle flag removed from the reverse of the Texas state seal.

Go to Meet Charles for remainder of article.

Spain for Justice

A History of Progressive Values

Did you know that in addition to being a longtime advocate for civil rights, Charles Spain has worked with Congress to pass federal legislation concerning Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday and with the Texas Legislature to pass state legislation revising all laws concerning the Texas flag and seal? He has also worked to standardize the Texas state seal and the designs for the Six Flags Over Texas, and he has served as a district Scout executive.

Learn More about Charles Spain »

News

Before he ran in 2018 to become the first openly LGBT appellate judge in Texas, Justice Charles Spain had worked in some capacity as a staff attorney for 23 years in different appellate courts, including the Texas Supreme Court. Spain argues that the other eight justices on the 14th Court of Appeals bring expertise in different aspects of the law but that he is the only one who practiced appellate law his entire life. That can come in handy. He was appointed by the Texas Supreme Court to create new rules for court procedures to speed up rulings on parental termination. He spoke with nuance about implicit bias and the need for diverse backgrounds on the court. He can pass as an old, straight white guy, he told us, but added, “I can also remember when I had to hide who I was, or I wouldn’t get anything except the door or beat up.” He said that his belief in due process and fundamental constitutional fairness comes in part from that experience.

. . . [W]e agree with [Spain’s primary challenger’s] own assessment that “Spain has been a good justice.” Voters should reward the incumbent with another term.