A legislative effort to keep Texas from
issuing marriage licenses to gay couples if the Supreme Court strikes
down state bans on gay marriage died on Wednesday. Republicans
instead approved a resolution reaffirming their opposition to
marriage equality.
The controversial bill, introduced by
Republican Rep. Cecil Bell, died in the Republican-led House when it
missed a critical deadline.
Bell's measure sought to prohibit state
or local governments from using public funds to issue marriage
licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
The bill was revived in the Senate when
Democratic Senator Eddie Lucio, Jr. attached it, along with many
other bills, to an uncontroversial county affairs placeholder bill
filed by Democratic Rep. Garnet Coleman.
Coleman vowed to withdraw his bill if
Democrats failed to strip the controversial measure.
“I'm not going to be forced into
carrying somebody else's hate in my legislation,” he said.
According to the Houston Press,
Lucio withdrew the bill on the Senate floor as the chamber neared a
midnight deadline to hear bills.
Lucio joined all 20 Republican Senators
in supporting Senator Kelly Hancock's resolution in support of
excluding gay couples from marriage.
“Having no force of law and with
anti-LGBT bills dead for the session, this was just a petty swipe at
LGBT Texans,” LGBT rights advocate Texas Freedom Network tweeted
after the vote.
In an interview last week with the
Huffington
Post, Bell vowed to push his legislation next year, if it
failed this session. But with only weeks to go before the Supreme
Court rules in a case challenging restrictive marriage bans in four
states, the debate on the issue is certain to change before lawmakers
reconvene.