On the right side of history
A majority of House Democrats have signed a brief to the Supreme Court opposing the Defense of Marriage Act (widely known as DOMA) — but not a majority of Texas Democrats.
Only four of the state’s nine Democratic House members joined the “friends of the court” brief. They were Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, Lloyd Doggett of Austin, Charlie Gonzalez of San Antonio and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas.
As expected, none of the Texas Republicans were among the 130 signers of the brief. But five Democrats joined them on the sidelines — Al Green and Gene Green of Houston, Henry Cuellar of Laredo, Ruben Hinojosa of Mercedes and Silvestre Reyes of El Paso.
Sadly, some of those names are not unexpected. Gene Green and Henry Cuellar do not have particularly good records on marriage quality. Silvestre Reyes‘ record is more mixed, as both he and Al Green are co-sponsors of the Respect for Marriage Act. (I couldn’t find anything relevant on Ruben Hinojosa in a cursory search.) In this day and age, with the President on board and the DNC set to follow, there’s no good reason not to oppose this anachronistic relic of a less enlightened time. Get on board, y’all.
Gene Green doesn’t have a particularly good track record on GLBT equality in general. He voted against repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and didn’t have a rational reason for doing so when I asked him about it at a town hall meeting.