Texas Supreme Court Denies Benefits to Same-Sex Couples
The Texas Supreme Court ruled against a lower court decision that said spouses of gay and lesbian public employees are entitled to government-subsidized same-sex marriage benefits.
The case challenged the city of Houston’s benefits policy after extending benefits to spouses of married gay and lesbian employees.
The Texas Supreme Court decided the 2015 landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage does not fully address the right to marriage benefits.
Justice Jeffrey Boyd wrote after the case to say there’s still room for state courts to explore the “reach and ramifications” of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.
“We agree with the Mayor [of Houston] that any effort to resolve whether and the extent to which the Constitution requires states or cities to provide tax-funded benefits to same-sex couples without considering Obergefell would simply be erroneous,” Boyd wrote.“On the other hand, we agree … that the Supreme Court did not address and resolve that specific issue in Obergefell.”
The case was part of Texas Republicans’ ongoing fight against the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide and led to the enactment of benefits policies for married same-sex couples.
Jonathan Mitchell, the former solicitor general for Texas and the lawyer representing opponents of the Houston policy, argued that marriage benefits are not a fundamental right and that Obergefell did not resolve questions surrounding such policies.
However, in a separate case against the state’s now-defunct ban on same-sex marriage, the Texas attorney general’s office actually argued that marriage is a right that comes with benefits the state is entitled to control.
Advocates are likely to push for the case to be appealed to federal courts.
