Lawmaker Totally Certain His Unconstitutional Bill Will Override Supreme Court Marriage Ruling

Next week Texas state lawmakers will vote on an unconstitutional bill its sponsor believes could override the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage. 

Anti-gay Texans, don’t worry, Rep. Cecil Bell has your back. The 52-year old Lone Star State native is pushing a flurry of anti-gay legislation, hoping some of it will stick. 

Next week on Tuesday, Texas House lawmakers will vote on a bill designed to protect Texas from same-sex marriage, and Rep. Bell’s insistence that his “God is sovereign” while advocating for the legislation could be used in a court case to prove its unconstitutionality.

The Preservation of Sovereignty and Marriage Act prohibits the State of Texas, including any state employees, from using “any funds to issue, enforce, or recognize a marriage license or declaration of informal marriage for a union other than a union between one man and one woman.”

In other words, in case the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage, Bell’s bill, HB 4105, effectively will defund marriage, but only for same-sex couples. That fact alone also makes it unconstitutional.

Bell’s bill also states no employee of the State of Texas or any locale can recognize any same-sex marriage, nor can they enforce laws supporting same-sex marriage.

HB 4105 also bans county clerks from registering same-sex marriages, and fines them if they do. One punitive portion of the bill commands the Vital Statistics Division to report any registered same-sex marriages to the State Attorney General.

“This will make certain our dollars are used the way we as Texans want them used,” Bell said during a hearing last month. 

That statement itself is questionable. Last year a Texas Tech University poll found Texans pretty much equally split on marriage equality. 48 percent of Texans support the right of same-sex couples to marry, while slightly less, 47 percent, oppose them.

At an anti-gay marriage rally in March, Rep. Bell said he knows he “got it right” with his bill, because “God says for this reason shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife so they shall become one. God is right. My god is sovereign,” Bell insisted, either ignoring the title of his own bill, or interpreting it to mean his Christian religion trumps the State of Texas, which is unconstitutional.

Here’s Bell speaking at that rally:

 

Image: Screenshot via YouTube
Hat tip: Texas Statesman