{"id":22788,"date":"2017-07-01T03:30:29","date_gmt":"2017-07-01T03:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22788"},"modified":"2017-07-01T03:30:29","modified_gmt":"2017-07-01T03:30:29","slug":"equal-protection-or-not-from-the-high-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22788","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Equal protection&#8217; or not, from the high court?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I totally understand that court rulings can be complicated and that there often is more than meets the eye.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Houston city employees aren&#8217;t guaranteed all spousal rights if they&#8217;re married to someone of the same sex.<\/p>\n<p>The state&#8217;s highest civil appellate court said in its ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court&#8217;s ruling that legalized gay marriage didn&#8217;t cover all the benefit rights that one thought might accrue for the same-sex spouses. As the Texas Tribune reported: &#8220;As part of a case challenging Houston\u2019s benefits policy, the Supreme Court\u00a0suggested a landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage does not fully address the right to marriage benefits.\u00a0Justice Jeffrey Boyd, writing on behalf of the court in a 24-page opinion, said there\u2019s still room for state courts to explore the &#8216;reach and ramifications&#8217; of the U.S. Supreme Court&#8217;s 2015 ruling in\u00a0<em>Obergefell v. Hodges<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2017\/06\/30\/texas-supreme-court-ruling-houston-same-sex-marriage-benefits\/\">Court ruling deals blow <\/a><\/p>\n<p>I admit readily that I&#8217;m a bit slow on the uptake at times. However, as I read the U.S. Supreme Court decision on this matter, I am certain I read something about the court deciding that the 14th Amendment&#8217;s &#8220;equal protection&#8221; extended to gay couples just as it does to all American citizens. The U.S. Constitution is clear in its guarantee of equal protection under the law to every American; it doesn&#8217;t take Americans&#8217; sexual orientation into account.<\/p>\n<p>Why, then, aren&#8217;t same-sex spouses entitled to the same rights as those involved in heterosexual marriages?<\/p>\n<p>My hope would be that the U.S. Supreme Court could clear up, somehow, this apparent discrepancy.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I totally understand that court rulings can be complicated and that there often is more than meets the eye. Thus, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Houston city employees aren&#8217;t guaranteed all spousal rights if they&#8217;re married to someone of the same sex. The state&#8217;s highest civil appellate court said in its ruling that the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=22788\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;Equal protection&#8217; or not, from the high court?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,18],"tags":[4088,6363,4717,4728],"class_list":["post-22788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-state-news","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-scotus","tag-texas-supreme-court","tag-texas-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22789,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22788\/revisions\/22789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}