By Pete Williams
A federal judge on Wednesday declared Texas’ ban on gay marriage unconstitutional but left the ban in place while an appeals court considers the matter.
The judge, Orlando Garcia of U.S. District Court in San Antonio, wrote that the state’s marriage laws demean the dignity of gay couples “for no legitimate reason.”
“Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution,” the judge wrote.
The Texas ban was approved by voters in 2005 and passed with 76 percent of the vote. Two gay couples were challenging it — a Texas couple who wanted to marry and a couple who married in Massachusetts and wanted it recognized by Texas.
“What it really marks is one more voice — that of Judge Garcia’s — joining the chorus that is arising around the country on same-sex marriage and marriage equality,” Barry Chasnoff, a lawyer for the couples, told NBC News. “All our clients ever wanted was the right to be treated with respect and dignity and this judge says they should have it.”
One of the couples, Mark Phariss and Vic Holmes, said in a statement: “We are extremely happy — happy beyond words — with Judge Garcia's decision. Having been together almost 17 years, we look forward to the day when we can get married and when all gay Texans enjoy equal rights to marry as well.”
Gay marriage is legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Judges in Oklahoma and Virginia struck down gay-marriage bans in those states but left the bans in place pending appeal.
The judge wrote that his decision was not “in defiance of the great people of Texas or the Texas Legislature, but in compliance with the United States Constitution and Supreme Court precedent.”
The Supreme Court last year struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that blocked federal recognition of gay marriage.
Read the ruling here.
First published February 26 2014, 11:48 AM
Pete Williams
Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent based in Washington, D.C. He has been covering the Justice Department and the U.S. Supreme Court since March 1993. Williams was also a key reporter on the Microsoft anti-trust trial and Judge Jackson's decision.
Prior to joining NBC, Williams served as a press official on Capitol Hill for many years. In 1986 he joined the Washington, D.C. staff of then Congressman Dick Cheney as press secretary and a legislative assistant. In 1989, when Cheney was named Assistant Secretary of Defense, Williams was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. While in that position, Williams was named Government Communicator of the Year in 1991 by the National Association of Government Communicators.
A native of Casper, Wyo. and a 1974 graduate of Stanford University, Williams was a reporter and news director at KTWO-TV and Radio in Casper from 1974 to 1985. Working with the Radio-Television News Directors Association, for which he served as a member of its board of directors, he successfully lobbied the Wyoming Supreme Court to permit broadcast coverage of its proceedings and twice sued Wyoming judges over pre-trial exclusion of reporters from the courtroom. For these efforts, he received a First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
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