Lesbian couple denied marriage license in Dallas

[The Philosopher]

from the Dallas Voice

Hendrix Scott and Jennifer McClusky applied for a marriage license at the Dallas County Clerk’s office today. More than a dozen people came to witness the couple applying for their license, including nine members of Occupy Dallas.

“I have to inform you that in the state of Texas same-sex marriage is not legal, so we will not be issuing your license today,” an employee in the clerk’s office told the couple.

The couple asked to speak to her superior, and County Clerk John Warren showed up.

GetEQUAL North Texas regional coordinator Daniel Cates told Warren: “We’re asking you to break the law equally. Uphold the letter of the law and stop issuing licenses to everyone.”

Cates claim that Warren isn’t upholding the law comes from the wording of the amendment to the Texas Constitution that reads, “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.“

Cates said that the only thing identical to marriage is marriage, which makes all marriage in Texas illegal under the law. Warren disagreed.

“It refers to anyone other than a person born as a man and a person born as a woman,” Warren said of state law.

“We’ll be back monthly until that changes,” Cates said.

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[DCKit]

1. County Clerk John Warren is issuing legal opinions now? nt

[William769]

2. We do that every year where I live at but we usually have a group of over 100 people

We basically occupy & well over run the marriage license office for the day demanding marriage licenses. But I could not attend this year due to medical reasons.

But I'm there in spirit.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

3. I'm surprised no one has tried this in court yet.

It seems like a slam-dunk case. The constitutional amendment was badly drafted, but not ambiguous at all, so there's no "what we really meant was . . . " argument possible. The plain language of the amendment is exactly as Ms. Cates describes it.

[Skwid]

4. It seems pretty certain the only real obstacle to suing over this is having the $$$ to do it.

Don't you think? (Although knowing Texas, I wouldn't count much on judicial support either before, during or after any proceedings)

[Geoff R. Casavant]

5. I expect there will be a test case at some point, but probably not in the GLBT arena.

Picture instead a rich oil baron, with grownup kids, taking a trophy wife, then dying. I think the important part here is that the marriage must have come after the constitutional amendment. If the kids are shameless enough (and the pockets should be deep enough) then they could make the argument that the marriage to the trophy wife was illegal.

I would expect the legislature to correct the problem before then. Heck, I'm surprised they haven't corrected it already, but my guess is they can't find a way to get it back on the ballot since the yokels think the big problem's already been solved.