At GOP leaders' urging, Texas Supreme Court will consider undoing gay spousal rights
AUSTIN, Texas _ The Texas Supreme Court will decide whether the husbands and wives of gay city employees in Houston deserve spousal benefits, a surprising and rare about-face spurred by pressure from Gov. Greg Abbott and dozens of other top Republicans.
"No city employee _ whether heterosexual or homosexual _ has a 'fundamental right' to receive employee benefits for his or her spouse," reads the lawsuit against Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. "It is perfectly constitutional for the government to offer benefits or subsidies to some married couples while withholding those benefits from others."
Last September, Texas' justices declined to hear the case, just months after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. But Jack Pidgeon and Larry Hicks, a pastor and CPA from Houston, asked the court to reconsider, arguing that legalizing gay marriage does not mean cities must require the spouses of LGBT city employees to get the same benefits extended to heterosexual husbands and wives.
Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton agreed, writing a "friend of the court" brief that argued extending spousal benefits is separate from legalizing marriage for same-sex couples.
"(The U.S. Supreme Court's) judgment does not include a command that public employers like the City of Houston take steps beyond recognizing same-sex marriage," Abbott, Patrick and Paxton wrote. "Steps like subsidizing same-sex marriages (through the allocation of employee benefits) on the same terms as traditional marriages."
The GOP leaders filed their brief in late October. Earlier that month, dozens of state lawmakers and religious leaders also urged the court to reconsider its decision.
The court will hear oral arguments in the case March 1.
The case dates to 2013, when Pidgeon and Hicks sued former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, the city's first openly gay mayor. Relying on a legal opinion from the city attorney, Parker decided to extend spousal benefits to gay couples, even though an amendment to the city charter banned the practice in 2001.
_The Dallas Morning News
