The biggest ego in Texas?

Most of the time, I’m proud to be a Texan, and specifically I’m proud to be a Houstonian. I have spent a grand total of around 2½ years of my life living outside of Houston city limits, and even that time was all in what most people would consider the “greater Houston area.” However, we have a few times where certain elected leaders do certain things that I refer to by the highly technical term “stupid shit.” This is one of those times, and this is the kind of thing that makes me a bit ashamed to be a Texan.

I am referring to this Houston Chronicle article on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton encouraging county clerks to ignore the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling. As you may know, judging by the number of rainbow Facebook avatars, this past Friday the Supreme Court struck down bans on same-sex marriages throughout the country (including Texas). However, it seems that Mr. Paxton thinks he and the county clerks who just don’t want to obey the law, are above the law.

As those who have read my blog in the past know, I have a rather low tolerance for stupidity. Obviously, this crosses the line, but it’s shameful because I’d expect better from someone who is in fact the attorney for the entire state when it comes down to it. There’s some consolation in knowing I didn’t vote for this idiot. A lot of us have known for a long time that love knows no boundaries. The hypocrisy of conservative religious groups protesting regarding the sanctity of marriage, yet remaining deafeningly silent on the subject of things like divorce doing far more harm to said sanctity, has completely discredited those groups in my view. It is archaic to restrict marriage based on gender.

To make matters worse, Texas’s marriage license forms went as far as to have one space for male partner, and one space for female partner. I couldn’t find the news stories covering this, but I do know this fact in and of itself got news coverage as the Supreme Court prepared to hear Obergefell v. Hodges. Has it always been like this? Did someone make this change on purpose, to make it as difficult as possible for same-sex marriages (requiring a scratch-out on the form for one gender or the other)? I’d be willing to bet it’s the latter case but it will be difficult at best to prove.

In closing, it is frustrating to me that the Supreme Court’s decision is not only getting a lack of respect, but is being flaunted on purpose by an attorney general who is doing an incredibly poor job of representing Texas. To the rest of the US (and the world): we aren’t all like this, and a significant number of us did not vote for this clown.