A federal judge last week set a
February trial date for a lawsuit challenging Texas' gay marriage
ban.
According to Reuters,
the case will be heard in a San Antonio federal court.
Plaintiffs in the case are two gay
couples represented by attorney Daniel McNeel Lane.
Cleopatra de Leon and Nicole Dimetman
of Austin married in Massachusetts but a constitutional amendment
approved by voters in 2005 prohibits Texas from recognizing their
marriage. The law also prevents San Antonio couple Victor Holmes and
Mark Phariss from marrying. The couple was denied a marriage license
in October.
“Just as the judicial branch
protected the fundamental right to marry and established that
discriminatory laws could not prevent mixed-race couples from
exercising that right, the courts again must step in to protect the
marriage right,” Lane is previously quoted as saying.
The suit is among the nearly two dozen
filed throughout the nation following a June ruling from the U.S.
Supreme Court striking down a key portion of the Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA) which prohibited the federal government from recognizing
the legal marriages of gay and lesbian couples. Most of the cases
have been filed in federal courts in hopes of reaching the Supreme
Court.
Jonathan Saenz, president of the
Christian conservative group Texas Values, described the lawsuit as
“frivolous” in comments to AFA's One News Now.
“Do laws mean anything to the
homosexual advocates?” Saenz rhetorically asked. “It's gotten to
this point to where the only way they win is people don't enforce the
law. That kind of mob rule will not work, and it's something that
will be a disaster for our state and our country.”
“This is the definition of a
frivolous lawsuit,” he
added.
A federal judge in Pennsylvania has set
a
June 9 trial date for a similar lawsuit challenging that state's
ban.