From same-sex marriage bans to bans on sex toys, Greg Abbott never met a law the Texas State legislature passed that he wouldn’t defend. But on interracial marriage? Mum’s the word.
When it comes to making a list of this century’s finest legal minds, there’s a strong chance Greg Abbott wouldn’t be highly-ranked. Since being in office, the Republican Attorney General has defended probably every law the Texas State legislature passed that was challenged to court — but had no problem attacking laws from other entities, like Obamacare. In fact, he’s sued the Obama administration 27 times over just the past four years.
Sadly for him, the “loss” column is bigger than the “win” column. Sadly for Texas taxpayers, he’s spent about $3 million on the 27 cases.
And then there’s the sex toy case.
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“Abbott’s tenure has included a number of instances in which he pursued comically bizarre legal arguments in cases for which he could have no reasonable hope of victory—seemingly forfeiting his powers of discretion,” Christopher Hooks at the Texas Observer writes. “In 2008, Abbott chose to defend the state’s ban on the sale of sex toys, a case that emerged from the fallout of Lawrence v. Texas. Over the years, Abbott has deployed novel legal arguments against gay marriage. But this wasn’t a case about gay marriage, a subject that still animates sincere moral disagreements. This was a case about every American’s god-given right to buy dildos.”
At the time, anti-sex toy laws were widely understood to be unconstitutional, but Abbott suited up for battle. The state, his lieutenants argued with straight faces before the 5th Circuit, had an interest in “discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex and the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation.†The state of Texas has a pressing interest, Abbott said, in discouraging you from masturbating or blowing your boyfriend. That was just six years ago.
So what about interracial marriage?
“When Abbott met with the San Antonio Express-News editorial board recently, reporter Peggy Fikac asked him about Loving,” Hooks continues.Â
He had defended the state’s gay marriage ban in court recently—would he have defended a ban on interracial marriage? Abbott took a different tack:
“Right now, if there was a ban on interracial marriage, that’s already been ruled unconstitutional,†Abbott pointed out. “And all I can do is deal with the issues that are before me … The job of an attorney general is to represent and defend in court the laws of their client, which is the state Legislature, unless and until a court strikes it down.â€
When I said I wasn’t clear if he was saying he would have defended a ban on interracial marriage, he said, “Actually, the reason why you’re uncertain about it is because I didn’t answer the question. And I can’t go back and answer some hypothetical question like that.â€
Really?
It’s only fair to note that Abbott is married to an Hispanic woman, but does he really believe that anyone thinks he can’t imagine whether or not he’d defend a ban on interracial marriage because there currently isn’t one in Texas?
Hooks muses that Abbott “likely would have defended a ban on interracial marriage, according to his own principles and record. He wouldn’t have known how not to. Abbott hasn’t shown a whole lot of independent spirit during his tenure as AG—he’s bound, he says, to defend whatever the Legislature vomits up.”
Case closed?
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