State Supreme Court will take up same sex marriage appeal

Somehow, this wasn’t the worst thing that happened yesterday.

After pressure from Texas GOP leadership, the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court on Friday reversed course and agreed to take up a same-sex marriage case.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, the state’s highest civil court will reconsider a Houston case challenging the city’s benefits policy for married same-sex couples. The court had previously declined to take up the case on a 8-1 vote, letting stand a lower court decision that upheld benefits for same-sex couples.

But Texas Republicans looking to narrow the scope of the landmark ruling legalizing same-same marriage urged the Texas court to reconsider. Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in October filed an amicus brief with the court asking them to reconsider the case.

Oral arguments have been set for March 1.

In asking the Texas Supreme Court to reopen the Houston case, state’s leaders also urged the court to clarify that the case that legalized same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges, does not “bind state courts to resolve all other claims in favor of the right to same-sex marriage.”

They argued that Obergefell does not include a “command” that public employers “take steps beyond recognizing same-sex marriage — steps like subsidizing same-sex marriages (through the allocation of employee benefits) on the same terms as traditional marriages.”

See here for the background. Hard to know what to make of this, but perhaps we’ll get a better idea at oral arguments. It rather goes without saying that the federal courts may take a dim view of any precedent-altering opinion from our Supremes. I’m going to hope for the best. The Observer, the Statesman, the Current, and the Chron have more.

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One Response to State Supreme Court will take up same sex marriage appeal

  1. Neither Here Nor There says:

    Welcome to Trump’s world, like abortion they will chip away until there is not much left. They laying out the ground work for the 2018 campaign.

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