Protect Marriage



   Some ideas are so bizarre people assume there is 

no chance they will be adopted.  That may have been 

true in a saner age but no more. That's why our Texas 

Legislature must act in this coming session to keep 

marriage a two-sex arrangement.  And Texas voters 

should make this a campaign issue.

   The threat of same sex marriage took tangible form 

in 1993 when a court in Hawaii ruled that restricting 

marriage to opposite sex couples violated the equal 

rights provision in the state constitution. Texas 

lawmakers should have acted then since Texas has a 

similar provision in its constitution.  In addition, the 

U.S. Constitution requires each state to give "full faith 

and credit" to the "public acts, records and judicial 

proceedings of every other State."  Clearly, if two 

persons of the same sex married each other  in some 

other state, Texas could be forced refusing to 

recognize that marriage. Nothing was done in the 

Legislature and the 1994 campaign season went by 

with no mention of this ticking time-bomb. 

   It might seem lawmakers could easily head off 

same-sex marriage by legislation or amending the 

state constitution but that has not been the case.  In 

Hawaii a state commission recommendation to 

legalize gay marriage was rejected by a legislative 

panel as were proposals to establish a domestic 

partnership registration and to extend the legal 

definition of marriage.  So the matter sits where the 

court left it -- with no enforceable bar to gay marriages. 

   In South Dakota, where a more traditional outcome 

might be expected, a bill to prohibit same-sex 

marriage was rejected by a legislative committee.  

This is the second time such legislation failed in South 

Dakota.    

   In recent years, numerous cities are giving same-

sex relationships more or less official recognition and 

many major corporations grant homosexual liaisons 

the same status as marriage for purposes of 

insurance and other employee benefits.     While 

voters should certainly find out where legislative 

candidates stand on this issue, it is by no means 

certain a state can act unilaterally to limit marriage to 

heterosexual couples. But the Constitution does give 

Congress the power to prescribe how these records 

and proceeding shall be proved and "the effect 

thereof," so we should also get commitments from 

congressional candidates.   

   This issue is fundamental to the nature of our culture 

and civilization.  We have already waited too long to 

deal with it.