The Texas Supreme Court added the one-sentence comment to the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct on Oct. 24, potentially creating hurdles for LGBTQ+ people seeking to marry, especially in rural areas.
Further, the comment could play a role in a federal lawsuit vying to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage in 2015, according to a report by Dallas NPR station KERA.
The high court’s alteration to the rules appears to come out of a legal dispute that arose when the State Commission on Judicial Conduct sanctioned a Waco judge who refused to marry LGBTQ+ couples while continuing to officiate ceremonies for straight ones, KERA reports.
A county judge in North Texas subsequently sued to challenge the sanction, setting up the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to ask the Texas Supreme Court whether it could create an exemption in the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Jason Mazzone, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign law professor who’s analyzed the North Texas case, told KERA the high court’s action may resolve the individual judge’s claim. However, he said LGBTQ+ couples turned away by judges still could sue to challenge their action.
Human Rights Glance
Brooklyn-based writer and reporter Jasper Nathaniel was going through the Turmus Ayya olive fields in the West Bank when he captured the spine-chilling footage showing masked Israeli settlers beating Palestinian settlers senseless, armed with crude melee weapons.
The most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader — Marwan Barghouti — is not among the prisoners Israel intends to free in exchange for hostages held by Hamas under the new Gaza ceasefire deal.
Dozens were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza on Saturday, local health officials said, despite a demand from U.S. President Donald Trump for Israel to stop bombing in response to a declaration by Hamas that it was ready to free hostages under his plan to end the two-year-old war.





























