Texas AG Files Suit To Stop Same-Sex Divorce

For the second time in the last couple of days, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed a ridiculous lawsuit. This second one is even very likely unconstitutional. First, he panders to his corporate masters by filing suit against the Environmental Protection Agency to try and stop their regulation of greenhouse gases. Then he panders to Texas bigots by filing suit to stop a same sex divorce that was approved by an Austin judge.

In 2005, Texas voted to ban same-sex marriages. Abbott is basing his lawsuit on that ban. He says that because same-sex marriages are banned in Texas, that means same-sex divorces are also banned. There are two possibilities for this action by Abbott. He is either trying to appeal to the bigoted base of the Republican Party in an effort to be re-elected, or he is a totally incompetent attorney (a real possibility).

The voters of Texas banned same-sex marriages -- not same-sex divorces. There is absolutely no proof at all that when Texas voters banned same-sex marriages they also thought they were banning same-sex divorces. In fact, some of those voters may actually be in favor of same-sex divorces (since it would mean less married gays and lesbians in the state). Abbott is trying to stretch the law's meaning to include something it was never meant to cover.

Abbott would like for us to believe that since Texas bans same-sex marriages, the couple getting the divorce were never legally married in Texas. On that count, he is simply wrong. While it is true the couple could not have gotten married in Texas, that does not mean they were not legally married.

The lesbian couple were legally married in Massachusetts in 2004. Since their marriage was legal in Massachusetts, that makes it legal in every state in the union. The marriage cannot be declared to not be legal simply because they moved to Texas. Article IV Section 1 of the United States Constitution guarantees this when it says, "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other state."

This constitutional provision has always included (and was meant to include) legal marriages, and since the constitutional provision does not exclude same-sex marriages, the couple were legally married in Texas. Whether Abbott likes it or not, the U.S. Constitution always trumps state law.

So what we have here are a couple legally married in Texas, and no Texas law that prohibits the divorce of legally married people. How could their divorce not also be considered legal?

But Abbott doesn't care about that. He is just being true to Republican values, and two of the biggest of those "family values" is hatred and bigotry.