Federal Judge declares Texas Law Banning Same Sex Marriage Unconstitutional

Judge Orlando Garcia, a Clinton appointee ruled today that a long standing law limiting marriage to one man and one woman is unconstitutional.

“Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution,” Garcia wrote. “These Texas laws deny plaintiffs access to the institution of marriage and its numerous rights, privileges, and responsibilities for the sole reason that Plaintiffs wish to be married to a person of the same sex.”

Of course Texas, like most other states allows domestic partnerships, and Judge Garcia would be hard pressed to name a right or privilege that domestic partnerships are denied, but it doesn't matter.

Nor do the rights of the people of Texas, who passed this law overwhelmingly in a popular referendum.Their rights only matter when they 'vote properly'.

Unlike California, the State of Texas has an attorney general who actually abides by his sworn oath. Greg Abbott, who also is the leading Republican candidate to succeed Gov. Rick Perry, is going to appeal the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans.

“This is an issue on which there are good, well-meaning people on both sides,” Abbott said in a statement. “The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled over and over again that States have the authority to define and regulate marriage.”

I would disagree with Mr. Abbot here. Actually, what the Supreme Court has ruled is that law and the will of the people can be subverted fairly easily.

The most recent SCOTUS decision on the issue are amazing in their disregard for law. In the one on California's Proposition 8, they simply decided that the people of California had no right to amend their own state constitution or to be represented in court if their state officials simply chose not to be bothered to enforce whatever laws they individually decided were politically inconvenient. The SCOTUS didn't even bother to declare Prop 8 unconstitutional, but punted and decided to take the cowardly way out and simply deny the people of California standing to appeal, which meant that the former attorney general Jerry Brown, now governor, could simply pretend the law doesn't exist and order it to be violated at will to curry favor with an important new constituency and source of fund raising.

Homosexual marriage activists understood this message quite well, and their tactics have changed accordingly. In states where they could count on friendly politicians to push same sex marriage over the line whether people wanted it or not like Massachusetts and California, they did so. In other states, rather than bother with state legislators or respecting existing law, they conducted what amounts to lawfare..shopping for Democrat appointed judges,filing suit and getting court orders to overturn long standing law and the will of the people.

It's worked pretty well in several states,making a mockery of the Supreme Court decision on prop 8 that called for existing laws against same sex marriage in states that already had them to be respected. It remains to be seen how well this tactic works.

One thing is certain. This is establishing a precedent for judicial tyranny. The balance of power changes, and just like Harry Reid's elimination of the filibuster, this is going to turn into something the Left is going to be quite sorry for in the future when it does.