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Texas Gay Marriage Plaintiff Snubs Gov. Abbott On Wedding Invite

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Issue still divides former law school buddies.

Anti-gay Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott and Mark Phariss were good law school buddies at Vanderbilt University in the early 1980s. 

In fact, when Abbott was hit by a falling tree limb while jogging in 1984, leaving him paralyzed, Phariss (image, left) flew from Tulsa to Houston to visit his bedside.

But after Phariss became a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit challenging Texas’ same-sex marriage ban in 2013, their relationship grew strained. Abbott, then the state’s attorney general, vigorously defended the law, fighting to deny equal rights to his old friend. 

On Friday, Phariss and his partner of 18 years, Vic Holmes, finally obtained their marriage license after prevailing in the lawsuit. The couple now plans a “Texas-sized wedding” in November, but Phariss says even though he’s continued to exchange Christmas cards with the governor over the years, Abbott won’t be on the list of invitees. 

“We want people there who are supportive,” Phariss told The New Civil Rights Movement. “We don’t want a zoo for a wedding, and having Greg there, while that would be a plus in terms of how we’re moving people along, he would never come anyway.” 

When Abbott was asked in early June if he’d attend a same-sex wedding, he dodged the question by saying, “A gay marriage in Texas would be illegal, and so I’d probably would not attend an illegal event.”

A spokesman for Abbott’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday about whether the governor would have attended Phariss and Holmes’ wedding had he been invited. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a GOP presidential candidate who opposes same-sex marriage, attended the wedding of a gay friend earlier this year. Other GOP presidential candidates have also said they’d attend a same-sex wedding. 

But for Abbott, a devout Catholic who leads the nation’s largest red state, attending a same-sex wedding could be politically risky. 

“The Supreme Court has abandoned its role as an impartial judicial arbiter and has become an unelected nine-member legislature,” Abbott said in a a statement following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. “Five Justices on the Supreme Court have imposed on the entire country their personal views on an issue that the Constitution and the Court’s previous decisions reserve to the people of the States.”

Phariss said both he and Abbott were invited to discuss the Texas marriage case at the Vanderbilt law school’s upcoming reunion in October, but Abbott declined.  

Although Abbott won’t be on hand for the wedding, plenty of other dignitaries will. They include Texas marriage co-plaintiffs Cleopatra DeLeon and Nicole Dimetman, openly gay Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, former state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, Phariss said. DOMA-busting attorney Robbie Kaplan is a maybe, but Neel Lane, who represented the couples in the Texas lawsuit, will deliver a toast.   

Phariss and Holmes, an Air Force veteran, obtained their marriage license Friday from the Bexar County Clerk’s Office in San Antonio, where they were turned away in 2013 and told, “We don’t do that in Texas.” Bexar County Clerk Gerard “Gerry” Rickhoff, one of the few Republican elected officials in the state who publicly supports marriage equality, personally issued the license to Phariss and Holmes. 

“That was the law of the land back then and so today I’m happy to be on the right side of history where we have an enlightenment attitude,” said Rickhoff.

Phariss said 250-300 people are expected to attend the wedding in their hometown of Frisco, a conservative Dallas suburb. 

“Our rings — wedding bands with one diamond embedded in each from diamonds previously included in a ring of my deceased father — will be carried on two flags, both courtesy of Sen. Harry Reid’s office,” Phariss said. “One flew over the U.S. Capitol on April 28, 2015, the date SCOTUS held hearings in Obergefell, and the other flew over the U.S. Capitol on June 26, 2015, the date SCOTUS issued its decision in Obergefell.

“This is what the marriage equality fight was all about — enabling couples who loved each other to marry, a right the U.S. Supreme Court correctly said is fundamental to us all,” he added. “Love, equality and justice won.”

Sadly, in addition to Abbott, some of the couple’s closest relatives will be absent from the ceremony, including Phariss’ twin sister and Holmes’ parents, due to their opposition to same-sex marriage.  

“To be honest, he’s kind of lower on my list of who I care about who’s not coming to my wedding,” Phariss said of the governor. “I’m more offended by Vic’s parents and my sister.”

 

Image by Scott Hagar, courtesy of the couple
Video via Fox San Antonio

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Trump Stumbles Over ‘God Bless America’ Lyrics at Veterans Day Ceremony

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10 hours ago

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November 11, 2025

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At Veterans Day events at Arlington National Cemetery, President Donald Trump, dressed in a long winter coat, with a scarf and gloves, put his hand over his heart as the band played, “God Bless America,” a patriotic song popularized during World War II, and sung by Kate Smith.

But as the assembled crowd sang the famous American tune, President Trump sang, “God bless America” — but stopped after those three words, seemingly unfamiliar with the lyrics or choosing not to sing the rest. His Vice President, JD Vance, next to him, sang the song.

During Tuesday’s ceremony, Trump also declared, “Today is not only Veterans Day, but it’s my proclamation that we are now going to be saying and calling [it] Victory Day for World War I,” The New York Post reported.

“I saw France was celebrating ‘victory day’, but we didn’t. And I saw France was celebrating another ‘victory day’ for World War II, and other countries were celebrating. They were all celebrated. We’re the one that won the wars,” Trump also said.

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This appears to not be the first time the President has had difficulty with “God Bless America.”

“Donald Trump, the president, either does not know or does not care about the lyrics to ‘God Bless America,'” Mashable reported in June 2018, during Trump’s first term.

That same day, The New York Times reported that Trump had stumbled through the lyrics of “God Bless America.”

“The president closed his ‘Celebration of America’ event with a rendition of the patriotic tune, but didn’t quite get all the words.”

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White House Says Inflation’s ‘Way Down’ — Americans Aren’t Buying It

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November 11, 2025

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Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, insists that despite five months of rising prices, inflation is actually “way down.” But polls and recent election results suggest voters see things differently.

Hassett on Tuesday told CNBC, “we’re comfortable that inflation has come way down — the 5% on average, for Joe Biden.”

“It’s probably a little less than half of that right now,” he continued. “And the trajectory is really, really, really good.”

Inflation for the month of December 2024, President Joe Biden’s last full month in office, was 2.9%. It increased to 3.0% in the month of January 2025.

Inflation for the month of September 2025, the last month for which there is Bureau of Labor Statistics data, was 3.0%.

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Hassett went on to say that “inflation is one of those things that has a lot of momentum, if you look at the charts…”

“Even though it’s been increasing for five straight months as of September?” CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla asked.

“Well, I guess if you look at it from January, there’s ups and downs and seasonals, but yeah, it surprised on the downside, people were expecting it to accelerate it and it didn’t.”

Economist Justin Wolfers on Tuesday appeared to mock Hassett’s claims by posting a graph.

Voters one week ago took to the polls and delivered a resounding message to Republicans and President Donald Trump. Exit polls show that voters’ number one concern was the economy and affordability, as they decided to put Democrats into office.

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And national polls show the same result: the high cost of living, the state of the economy, and affordability are all top of mind for voters, who give President Trump low marks in those areas.

One week ago on Monday, the day before the election, CNN reported, “61% of Americans think Trump has made the economy worse. Could that impact tomorrow’s elections?”

The New York Times shows President Trump’s current average approval rating is 42%, and disapproval rating is 55%.

In mid-October, CNBC reported that on the economy, Trump’s approval was “the lowest of any CNBC survey during either of Trump’s two terms.”

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White House Denies Post-Election Pivot as Trump Prepares New Affordability Push

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13 hours ago

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November 11, 2025

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In the days following last Tuesday’s sweeping Democratic victories, Trump administration officials fanned out across news outlets to highlight the administration’s focus on affordability, assuring Americans that prices have fallen under President Donald Trump. The president himself reiterated his claim—made many times before—that grocery prices are “way down.”

Critics say that overall, prices largely have not come down, and inflation remains around 3%—roughly the same level as when President Trump took office earlier this year.

Last Wednesday, Politico reported that a person close to the White House told the news outlet that “The President hasn’t talked about the cost of living in months.”

And White House deputy chief of staff James Blair told Politico, “You’ll see the president talk a lot about cost of living as we turn … into the new year.”

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But now the White House is insisting the focus has been there all along, and denies any post-election ramp up.

“It’s not something where we called a meeting Wednesday morning after the election and said, ‘We have to get stuff on the board now,’” an unnamed White House source told Politico on Tuesday. “At both a systemic level and more targeted micro examples, we have been consistently focused on addressing affordability.”

Late last week, the Associated Press confirmed the President’s new messaging focus.

“President Donald Trump is adjusting his messaging strategy to win over voters who are worried about the cost of living with plans to emphasize new tax breaks and show progress on fighting inflation,” the AP reported. “The messaging is centered around affordability, and the push comes after inflation emerged as a major vulnerability for Trump and Republicans in Tuesday’s elections, in which voters overwhelmingly said the economy was their biggest concern.”

Politico on Tuesday also noted the increase in messaging.

“In the wake of last week’s bruising off-year elections that underscored just how vulnerable the GOP is heading into 2026, Trump has announced a bevy of policies that may ease the pressure on household budgets.”

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Those include a claim he will send low- and middle-income Americans $2,000 tariff dividend checks, and a deal with pharmaceutical companies to sell popular GLP-1 weight loss drugs at reduced prices.

On Sunday, he also proposed sending Americans money for health savings accounts in what appeared to be an attack on Obamacare and insurance companies.

CNBC reported on Tuesday that economists say some of these ideas “are not likely to become policy anytime soon.”

As prices remain high at grocery store checkouts, President Trump, however, has been pushing back on Americans’ affordability focus, while insisting his job is already done.

Last week, Trump “bragged that the price of Walmart’s pre-assembled Thanksgiving Dinner has been reduced by 25% this year,” a Monday USA Today opinion piece by Chris Brennan noted. Also reduced were the number of items in the meal.

“I don’t want to hear about the affordability,” Trump said on November 6, Brennan noted, as he “defended his administration’s attempts to resist a judge’s order to make full federal food assistance program payments, known as SNAP, to 42 million Americans, during the federal government shutdown.”

One day later, “Trump insisted that the recent focus on ‘affordability’ was a ‘con job’ by Democrats.”

Trump repeated his “con job” claim Monday night on Fox News, along with some other incorrect claims, such as the price of gas.

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