Discrimination makes for Odd Arguments
In a recent news story covered nationwide, a gay Texas couple who had been married in Massachusetts, but are now Texas residents, wanted to file for an amicable divorce. The Family Law Court judge in the case ruled that she would hear the case for the divorce.
In Texas, there is one of those recently-enacted constitutional amendments that requires that a marriage shall be only between a man and a woman, rather than between any two consenting adults. Thus, the Texas state attorney general announced that he was going to appeal this decision, based upon the fact that a state that doesn’t sanction this otherwise valid marriage cannot sanction a same-sex divorce. In the words of AG Greg Abbott, “The laws and constitution of the State of Texas define marriage as an institution involving one man and one woman. Today’s ruling purports to strike down that constitutional definition – despite the fact that it was recently adopted by 75 percent of Texas voters.”
All right, so 75% of Texas voters elected to restrict marriages to couples of mixed genders. I understand that the AG would be required to defend the state’s laws and constitution as necessary. However, if you stand back and look at the situation, the state AG of Texas, purportedly in an effort to protect the married folks of his state, are protecting them by requiring this gay couple to remain married.
Let me get this straight. The Texas AG it wanting to defend his constitution that says that only heterosexual couples shall be allowed to marry in his state. To accomplish this, he would like his state’s appeals court to require that this homosexual married couple remain married. I’m I really alone in not understand his train of thought?
I realize his argument is that if a gay couple can’t marry in his state that there should also be no mechanism for divorce in his state. However, this business of discrimination sometimes results in some odd outcomes. It is as if we need to add layers upon layers of explanation to justify our discrimination against our fellow man. Wouldn’t it be easier if we give all of our citizens equal rights?
Finally, just to add something here, the next time I hear any Texas politician say that they need less government to allow our citizens “personal freedom” or any similarly-worded statement, I’ll be thinking back to how the State of Texas extends freedom to these two men.
October 5th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
The Texas law is not “one of those recently enacted” provisions. I don’t have access to my law books right now, but in Texas marriage has been defined as involving one man and one woman since before I was in law school 20 years ago. I specifically remember studying for my Family Law Final Exam learning the difference between marriages, void marriages, voidable marriages, and no marriage at all (homosexual marriage was no marriage at all because it didn’t involve one man and one woman).
And, no, the AG is not requiring this couple to remain married. He’s attempting to require them to remain “unmarried in Texas”. The logic is that if they became married in Massachusetts, then it’s Massachusetts’ problem how to get them divorced. By implication, if the couple wished to be married, they should have stayed where it’s legal for them to be married (i.e., not Texas).
And doesn’t it seem odd that the couple married out of state, moved to Texas, and filed for divorce as soon as they had lived in Texas long enough to file suit?
November 9th, 2009 at 6:22 am
Actually, it really doesn’t make much difference here whether the requirement for marriage to be between one man and one woman is a current change or 50 years ago or written into the original constitution. The issue is that the state law dictates that two otherwise eligible adults cannot choose to marry solely because of their gender. Whether the law is recent or not, it is still wrong to discriminate for this reason.
Frankly, I think it is odd that they moved to Texas for any purpose. The fact is, though, that they did, and did so legally. They are also legally married. As some state legislatures become enlightened enough to change these archaic and discriminatory laws, other states will need to face how they will continue to justify their own discriminatory laws.