MARRIAGE NEWS WATCH

Texas Lawmakers Are Getting Ready To Defy The Supreme Court On Marriage

Texas_Jeff_MetzlerTexas lawmakers vote this week on whether the state should officially defy the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage. Alabama and Minnesota are debating bills to undermine marriage equality. At least one presidential candidate seems to think that if elected he could veto the Supreme Court. But a new survey shows that Americans are getting tired of these anti-gay shenanigans.

When the Supreme Court rules on marriage this June, everyone in the country will be bound by the decision. Everyone. Even Texas. And yet, this week Texas lawmakers will vote on a bill that would order state employees to defy the anticipated pro-equality ruling from the the Supreme Court.

Just to be clear: this is definitely not allowed. When the Supreme Court says you have to do something, you can’t just pass a “no I don’t” bill, no matter how big your cowboy hat is. But the bad news is that this bill, which is clearly not constitutional, will probably pass. It has a ton of co-authors in the House, plenty of support in the Senate, and Governor Greg Abbott says that marriage equality causes unplanned pregnancies so he’s probably going to sign it.

Eventually, the law will be overturned, but it could take years and millions of dollars. And in the mean time, LGBTs will continue to suffer: denied the equal dignity of marrying the people they love, under a law that should never have been passed in the first place.

And it’s not just Texas that’s doing this. Last week Alabama debated HB56, which would allow judges to refuse to marry gay couples. And in Minnesota, where marriage has been legal for three years, Republicans are pushing a bill that would poke holes in the state’s nondiscrimination laws, allowing private companies to penalize gay and lesbian couples.

Presidential candidates are jumping on the bandwagon as well. Candidate Ben Carson says that if he was elected president, he’d simply overrule the Supreme Court’s decision. That statement is so completely divorced from how things work that it’s hard to understand what Carson thinks the President even is.

The good news is that most Americans want marriage equality, and they want it from the Supreme Court. A new survey shows that 58 percent of Americans want the LGBT couples bringing suit before the court to win. For now, those politicians passing antigay laws may be popular with their local base. But the more people learn that the bills are unnecessary — and aren’t even legal — the less popular they get.

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