A Texas Court of Appeals has ruled that District Court Judge Tena Callahan had no jurisdiction to divorce a gay couple that was legally married in Massachusetts in 2006.
I will put aside the legal argument that this is a clear violation of the equal protection clause for a second, and just reflect on the fact that what the court has done is effectively forced to gay couple to stay married, hasn’t it?
I could carry on with my personal opinion on this for days and days, but I doubt I would change anyone’s mind, as most folks are clearly on one side of this issue or the other. But I will say that the decision itself seems somewhat ironic to me in that Texas will not recognize gay marriage, but they won’t divorce a gay couple either because to do so would recognize the gay marriage… is that right?
Needless to say, I don’t think this opinion makes a whole lot of sense from a legal standpoint, and it is a clear violation of equal protection for these two men.