Today, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the state's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.
The Huffington Post reports that U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia delivered a preliminary injunction on the ban, although a stay that he issued on it will keep the ban in place for the moment.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Garcia pointed to recent Supreme Court rulings to support his deicision. "Today’s court decision is not made in defiance of the great people of Texas or the Texas Legislature, but in compliance with the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedent," he explained in his order. "Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our U.S. Constitution."
Garcia's decision comes after two same-sex couples sued the state. The Houston Chronicle reports that a lesbian couple was forced to travel to Massachusetts to wed and want their home state to officially recognize their marriage. Another couple who has been together for 17 years wants their wedding to take place in Texas.
[via The Huffington Post, Hoston Chronicle and Dallas Morning News]
