Steven Hotze, president of Conservative Republicans of Texas, a PAC that pushed the anti-gay marriage bill
More good ideas from Texas, where lawmakers hope to stall same-sex marriage rights indefinitely with legal battles if the Supreme Court strikes down gay marriage bans nationwide come June. Sandhya Somashekhar
has the details:
Supporters of the measure, which is scheduled for a vote as soon as Tuesday in the Texas House, said it would send a powerful message to the court. Taking a cue from the anti-abortion movement, they said they also hoped to keep any judicially sanctioned right to same-sex marriage tied up in legal battles for years to come.
The measure, by Rep. Cecil Bell, a Republican from the outskirts of Houston, would prohibit state and local officials from using taxpayer dollars “to issue, enforce, or recognize a marriage license . . . for a union other than a union between one man and one woman.”
Those would be the same taxpayer dollars LGBT Texans pay every year in order to support the issuance of marriage licenses to everyone else.
On Monday afternoon, the bill reportedly had enough support to pass through the House if it could reach the floor for a vote before a Thursday deadline. Upon clearing the House, the bill would almost certainly sail through the Senate.
For more on the bill's implications, head below the fold.
Adoption of such a bill would put Texas on a similar course to Alabama where the state Supreme Court's rulings have countered those of a federal district judge, creating chaos from county to county. LGBT advocates also worry that other state lawmakers who oppose marriage equality might follow the lead of Texas.
That could lead to a standoff much like the conflict that arose in the 1950s over school desegregation, gay rights advocates said. That battle eventually ended in the capitulation of resistant Southern states — but only after years of litigation slowed the advance of civil rights.
“Texas is pioneering a new strategy to prevent equality for its LGBT residents, to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court and even roll back gains that have been made in the state,” said Chuck Smith, president of Equality Texas, a gay rights group.
If adopted, the law would not only put Texas legislators on the wrong side of history, it would also put them on the wrong side of public opinion—in Texas, no less.
Even in Texas, opposition to gay marriage is dwindling. Polling conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2014 shows that nearly half of Texans, 48 percent, support same-sex marriage, and 43 percent oppose it.
In a teleconference with reporters, critics of the Texas measure predicted that it would provoke a backlash like those that roiled Indiana and Arkansas this year, after those states attempted to enact religious protections that were viewed as anti-gay.
LGBT advocates on the phone call also stressed that they were trying to sound the alarm bells BEFORE the bill passed.