{"id":9669,"date":"2015-06-09T12:59:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-09T12:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9669"},"modified":"2015-06-09T12:59:52","modified_gmt":"2015-06-09T12:59:52","slug":"lets-now-await-high-court-ruling-on-gay-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9669","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s now await high court ruling on gay marriage"},"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>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott knows when the Legislature has finished its work and there&#8217;s no need for &#8220;overtime.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thus, he has nixed the idea of a special session to deal with same-sex marriage, which legislative conservatives wanted to do.<\/p>\n<p>To what end? Beats me.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2015\/06\/08\/abbott-no-special-session-same-sex-marriage\/<\/p>\n<p>Texas already has approved a constitutional amendment that says, by golly, marriage should involve a man and a woman. The amendment came on top of an existing statute that said the very same thing.<\/p>\n<p>Now the state\u00a0is awaiting &#8212; along with 49 other states &#8212; a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that well could render all of that action moot. The court is going to decide, more than likely, whether states&#8217; bans on same-sex marriage violate the federal Constitution, the one to which all state governments must adhere.<\/p>\n<p>Texas legislators considered a bill that dealt with religious freedom, a bill that resembled legislation approved in Indiana, but which attracteded a torrent of protest from gay-rights groups. The Indiana bill would have allowed businesses to deny serving same-sex couples on the basis of business owners&#8217; religious convictions. Critics said the bill, in effect, permitted business owners to discriminate openly.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas bill didn&#8217;t pass. Legislators, though, did approve a bill that, according to the Texas Tribune says this &#8212; and you&#8217;ll have to follow it closely to understand it: The bill protects those from being from forced to &#8220;solemnize\u00a0any marriage or provide services, accommodations, facilities, goods or privileges for a purpose related to the solemnization, formation or celebration of any marriage if the action would cause the organization or individual to violate a sincerely held religious belief.\u201d The bill awaits action from Gov. Abbott.<\/p>\n<p>Hey, all of this could be tossed aside if the high court rules that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees every American &#8220;equal protection&#8221; under the law, regardless of who they love or intend to marry.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m pretty sure that covers Texas.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/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>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott knows when the Legislature has finished its work and there&#8217;s no need for &#8220;overtime.&#8221; Thus, he has nixed the idea of a special session to deal with same-sex marriage, which legislative conservatives wanted to do. To what end? Beats me. http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2015\/06\/08\/abbott-no-special-session-same-sex-marriage\/ Texas already has approved a constitutional amendment that says, by &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9669\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Let&#8217;s now await high court ruling on gay marriage<\/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":[2006,4088,4596,4652,4653,4954,4984],"class_list":["post-9669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-state-news","tag-greg-abbott","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-texas-constitution","tag-texas-legislators","tag-texas-legislature","tag-u-s-constitution","tag-u-s-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9669","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=9669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}