A Dallas couple on Thursday staged a
second sit-in to protest Texas' gay marriage ban.
Mark “Major” Jiminez and Beau
Chandler returned to the Dallas County Clerk's office where they had
been arrested in July for staging a sit-in after they were denied a
marriage license and again asked for a marriage application. After
the pair was denied a license for a second time, they once again
clasped their hands together and refused to leave. Jiminez was
eventually carted off by police and charged with trespassing.
The couple's second protest took place
after they had left their first court appearance for July's offense,
Dallas-based WFAA reported.
“How is our marriage going to affect
your life?” Jiminez
told reporters. “When you're sitting down to the dinner table,
how is the fact that we're married going to affect your life, at all?
It's not! So why are you worried about it?”
Chandler earlier told gay weekly Dallas
Voice that Jiminez had proposed to him in May: “He made
breakfast and I was eating pancakes and found a ring inside. He
asked if I would be his husband.”
The couple is planning a symbolic
wedding ceremony in September to coincide with Dallas Gay Pride.