Officals urge state’s high court not to expand same-sex marriage ruling

Ed Sterling

 

Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last week filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Texas Supreme Court over issues they say were not addressed in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case declaring same-sex marriage a fundamental right.

 

The three officials asked the Texas Supreme Court to accept their view that Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2015 decision recognizing a right to same-sex marriage “does not resolve all constitutional issues relating same-sex marriage.” The brief points to Parker v. Pigeon and related cases involving a Houston mayor’s extending benefits to same-sex spouses of city employees, and asks that a lower court’s temporary injunction preventing the extension of those benefits be reinstated.

 

“Both the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit made clear that Obergefell left a host of issues unresolved,” Abbott, Patrick and Paxton asserted. They maintained that “the traditional, Texas definition of marriage” is still in force because “a federal district court judgment against state officials does not amend the Texas Constitution or the Texas Family Code.”

 

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