Dallas Judge Challenges Texas Gay Marriage Ban

In the Lone Star State, there's both a constitutional amendment and a Texas Family Code that prohibit same-sex marriage and civil unions.  It's a double dose of state-sanctioned discrimination aimed at keeping LGBT folks from achieving equal rights.  We also have at least one brave "activist judge" who's willing to buck the status quo and take a stand for equality.  Karl Musselman on the Burnt Orange Report:  Dallas district Judge Tena Callahan ruled today that the state's bans on same-sex marriage, passed by voters in 2005 as Prop 2, violates the constitutional guarantee to equal protection under the law.  As such, she is ruling to allow a same-sex couple married in Massachusetts to be granted a divorce in Texas.  This is in spite of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's intervention in the case saying it just can't be allowed under his interpretation of the law.

From the Dallas Morning News:  Callahan denied the attorney general's intervention and said her court "has jurisdiction to hear a suit for divorce filed by persons legally married in another jurisdiction."  "This is huge news. We're ecstatic," said Dallas attorney Peter Schulte, who represents the man who filed the divorce... Schulte said the ruling was a surprise and that he hoped to have a divorce order for the judge to sign in the "next few weeks."  In a prepared statement, Attorney General Greg Abbott said he would appeal the ruling "to defend the traditional definition of marriage that was approved by Texas voters." 

Schulte cited the Full Faith and Credit clause of the U.S. Constitution, which mandates that a valid judgment from one state be enforced in other states regardless of the laws or public policy of the other states.   The invariably conservative attorney general's office rejected that argument, saying the clause "does not require Texas courts to recognize or give legal effect to marriages between persons of the same sex under the laws of other jurisdictions."

Abbot, unsurprisingly, plans to appeal the ruling.

A commenter calling himself "Great White' wrote this on the Beaumont Enterprise website:  "God didnt give you a butt hole for this, I dont think he ever expected any of this homosexual stuff thats why he put women on earth for to procreate. He is so pure that he wouldnt have even thought something so sick could ever exist, now note this was 50 years ago or so its that damn MTV that started all this mess."

Governor Rick Perry must be trolling the boards again.

Comments

[Mark]

MTV: Turning people gay since 1959.

[Bee Girl]

If this stands up under appeals it will be HUGE.

[Jem]

Sweet.