It reads like an Onion piece or maybe something John Oliver would ‘report on’, but this story’s no joke… Lawmakers in the Lone Star State may have taken their efforts to prohibit same-sex marriages too far–for everyone.
Texas’ gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages
By Dave Montgomery
Fort Worth Star-TelegramAUSTIN — Texans: Are you really married?
Maybe not.
Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.
The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:
“This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”
No, we’re not likely to see the dismantling of marriages across Texas, but according to Radnofsky, the clear language of Subsection B brings up legal questions about spousal rights, insurance claims, inheritance, and more. Go read the full article here.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
“Similar” to marriage. Ugh, that’s some fine legal language there.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Those Texas politicians never cease to surprise me.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
What they’ve overlooked, of course, is that marriage is a legal status identical to or similar to marriage. Amazing how people forget that A = A. Hope my TX marriage license is worth something.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
@2 Pete, Me either.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Consider that our former Moron in Chief was the govn’r of Texas before destroying America, is it any wonder that the congress_critters making laws are even less enabled? If you want to see some REAL stupidity at work, drop in on the Board of Education hearings. They want to take Neil Armstrong out the science books and put in Intelligent Design!
November 20th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
“Consider that our former Moron in Chief was the govn’r of Texas before destroying America, is it any wonder that the congress_critters making laws are even less enabled? If you want to see some REAL stupidity at work, drop in on the Board of Education hearings. They want to take Neil Armstrong out the science books and put in Intelligent Design!”
Well, wasn’t that venting constructive…no wonder we have difficulty convincing people that those that believe in the scientific method are rational creatures simply looking for the truth.
Once you become an intellectual slave to ANY political party or dogma, your rationality dies, and along with it your objectivity. This sort of mindless ranting is not the least helpful.
And we wonder why we have trouble teaching science to students and the public.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
This is amusing, but legally nothing. The touchstone in legal interpretation is the intent of the Legislature and voters. In this case, the language is ambiguous, but there can be no reasonable doubt that the intent was not to ban heterosexual marriage.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Justice Scalia, among others, looks very negatively on any attempt to determine the intent of the legislature when analyzing statutes. I’d guess his school of legal thought is popular in Texas, though I would be shocked if they didn’t make an exception here.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
They were worried gay marriage would destroy straight marriages.
It’s hilarious that their fear was a self-fulfilling one.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
I’m pretty sure what the geniuses in Texas meant was that there would only be a single marriage in the state of Texas. I just wonder whom the lucky couple is.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Oh, this is funny… and on a topic there is not much to laugh about. Too bad there will be no real lesson learned here about legislating human commitment.
Dale Moore’s comment above really made me laugh too.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:48 am
Woody’s right.
Even Scalia would decide this one correctly, even if he weren’t a flaming hypocrite. (Which he is.)
There’s clearly an ambiguity in the phrasing, not a clear error.
People often use “similar to” to mean “similar to but not exactly the same as,” and that’s clearly what the Lege has done here, bless their pointy little heads.
I doubt a suit based on the “strict” interpretation would get past a first glance by any judge in the country. No way it would get to trial.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:56 am
BTW,
As a Texan, I have to point out that however appalling our legislature and State Board of Education are—and yes indeedy, they are thoroughly apalling—Texas isn’t quite as backward as it seems from the outside.
For example, an out lesbian has made it to the runoff for mayor of Houston, and for most people, her homosexuality isn’t much of an issue.
Naturally, there’s a substantial vocal minority that’s rabidly against her, but sadly, that would be true most places in the country.
And if she does manage to win, the most populous city in Texas will be the first major city anywhere in the U.S. to elect an out lesbian mayor. We’re not talking about Austin, remember, but Houston.
Not too shabby.
Even if she loses, I hope we get partial credit for having a plurality of non-morons.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:04 am
Agreed. My hope is that Texas will lead in taking on the energy problem. There are opportunities down there to pave the way for the rest of the planet.
November 21st, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Oh, and on the general topic of right wing insanity…
Apparently 52 percent of Republicans think that Obama is not the legitimate president of the United States, because Acorn stole the election for him with fraudulent votes.
This despite the fact that Acorn registered under a million voters, and Obama won by about 10 times that.
Creepily, about 1 in 8 Democrats either think Obama lost, or don’t know. Holy cow.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/11/52_of_republicans_think_obama.php#c2091980