Yahoo Answers deleted the question I posted about this issue today. They said that to ask about such a thing was “offensive.” WTF?

Anyway, what’s the deal with this? Has anyone challenged this in court, or what?

How ridiculous can you be? The context of this whole thread is civil marriage, so it is not necessary to mention the word “civil” as intelligent people can infer that from context. The discussion was about the implications of change to the Texas state constitution where someone missed an important corner case.

It’s not clear what your emotional problem is, but your continual abusive personal comments is a pretty good indication that you do in fact have serious issues. Let me suggest that you get some professional help. You definitely need it.

Civil marriage is not a legal prerequisite for religious marriage. Certainly, one must apply properly and qualify for civil marriage, in order to receive civil marriage benefits. It’s illegal to enjoy civil marriage benefits without a license, and it’s illegal to improperly apply to receive that license, but it’s not illegal to marry and call yourself married, without such approval from the State.

The constitutional amendment simply ends the participation in and recognition of civil marriages in TX. Not MARRIAGE, but government recognition of them. It voids “marriage” as a legal status, but it does not nullify marriages.

As was pointed out to you, http://texas.usmarriagelaws.com/ clearly states, “In order to get married, you need to apply and receive a marriage license. This is the document in your state that allows you to officially tie the knot under the law.”

It is illegal to “officially tie the knot under the law” (that is, to be legally married) if you don’t have a license, and as worded the constitutional amendment makes getting that license illegal. Hence getting married is also illegal. So, marriage is outlawed in Texas if the courts decide to follow the letter of the law.

Infantile name calling on your part will not change the facts.

When the State stops issuing licenses for civil marriages, nothing prevents churches from continuing to perform marriage ceremonies, NOR will those marriages be illegal. The laws you cite are simply guidelines to follow to properly receive State recognition of your marriage. You can be punished for violating those terms, but no-one needs to file UNLESS they intend to request the privileges that the state to such license holders. Now that TX has divorced itself from the marriage business, marriage becomes a purely spiritual matter, which is what is should be.

Wrong. http://texas.usmarriagelaws.com/ :

“Marriage license Laws in the state of Texas, here is what you need to bring with you, and what you need to know about the Texas marriage laws before filling out the Texas marriage license form.

“In order to get married, you need to apply and receive a marriage license. This is the document in your state that allows you to officially tie the knot under the law.”

If you make it impossible to get a license, marriage is for all intents and purposes outlawed.

Does everything have to be spelled out for you? The rule was
“This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.” So, they can’t issue marriage licenses. It is illegal to be married without a marriage license.

A lack of recognition is not the same thing as making something illegal. Marriage is not outlawed, it’s simply been categorized as something the State shall not be involved in.

Steve wrote, “Mathematical logic and legal logic are closely related, but not identical. I am a mathematical logician, not a lawyer, but this seems like an interesting puzzle.” Steve got it right and concluded, like I did, that marriage is outlawed in Texas, although Steve phrased it differently (one can quibble as “R” did about the use of the word “outlaw”, which is informal English, versus some other word with essentially the same meaning, but that sort of quibbling is just plain silly.)

Starting with the exact text:
“This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”

There are three or-clauses in that sentence. Choosing one of the alternatives from each of those “or” clauses, we can read the sentence as:
“This state … may not … recognize any legal status identical … to marriage.”

Because “marriage” is a “legal status”, and “marriage” is identical to “marriage”, “marriage” is “a legal status identical to marriage”. Hence, by substitution, the previous reading becomes:
“This state … may not … recognize … marriage.”

Seems pretty clear to me. But then, I am not a lawyer. I just have a doctorate in mathematical logic.

If someone sues the state for recognizing a marriage, it could be both interesting and quite entertaining.

Just because a government formally declares that a thing is outside it’s interests to govern, does not mean that it is thus outlawed.

Nor does the fact that another arm of that government continues to raise revenues by selling useless marriage licenses mean that marriage is outlawed.

…which means the state can’t issue a marriage license, hence marriage being outlawed, at least for all intents and purposes.

Fortunately, it didn’t get enough signatures to get on the ballot, saving the state the embarrassment of trying to deal with this mess in court.

You guys that are making wide generalizations about entire states are ridiculous, and you’re going to miss out on a lot in life with attitudes like that. Not to mention 3 of the 10 largest cities in the country, yadda yadda.

The first part defines “marriage” and the second part outlaws marriage by saying, “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”

So marriage is in fact outlawed if you take the text of the law literally. It’s poorly written. The only way to keep marriage is to have a proverbial “activist judge” read tea leaves and determine what must have been intended, ignoring what was actually said. We are left with the right wingers having to pray that an activist judge will ignore the law and “do the right thing”, but they’ve already said that they hate activist judges.

lives anywhere else.

Thanks, but no thanks to your useless judgment — keep on flying over here. We don’t need your bigotry. And you can blame all the millions of Americans who voted for Bush in two different national elections for those messes, not just this one state.

A homosexual union is still not considered a “marriage”, but if it were to be separately recognised by any other name, then the State could choose to include such a status in legal considerations.

Nevertheless, it is still, and will always be a state that we fly over. It lacks international world class, couth, and anything interesting! Thanks to Texas we’ll be cleaning up Bush’s mile high pile of shit he left behind, for decades!

Texans are a diverse group of people governed by strict, conservative Republicans. They don’t speak for all of us, so don’t judge all of us by what they do. Come visit first before tossing around lines like that.

What is the penalty for executing the heir to the throne? Something slow and lingering, as I recall. Was it boiling oil or molten lead? I forget. When would be a good time? How about after lunch? … I know you were only trying to do my bidding, and that you had only good intentions. But the law doesn’t say anything about good intentions. It should, but it doesn’t. You know how slovenly these acts are drawn. But don’t worry. I’ll have the law changed ….. after your execution.