Actually, the more I think about this, the more I think the wording is intentional, and mean as snakes clever ... I think the logic goes like this ...
1) we can maybe, probably ban same-sex marriage ... based on "precedent" 2) but if we ban all civil unions and other legal arrangements for just gay people, the law will soon be overturned because it's discriminatory against one group (+ there are probably valid precedents supporting legal alternatives to marriage). 3) therefore we ban all marriage 4) when the gays challenge this in court based on the fact that it singles them out for mistreatment - HA ... this applies to everyone ... not mistreatment against you 5) when this is challenged based on the fact that all marriages in Texas are now verbotten we say - "oh come on, don't be silly now. this law was never intended to apply to heterosexual married couples ... so conservative (therefore "non-activist" yeah right) judge you have a handy out to rule to uphold the ban but exempt hetero's because we all know that the lawmakers didn't intend them when they wrote this amendment to save marriage. 6) Mmm ... this cake is lovely to have and to eat!
Ok. Sooner or later, someone will say enough of the foolishness ... but I bet it takes a good long while for the test cases to line up in the proper alignment to force a conservative court to rule to overturn. Or one day in many years, Texas will have a more liberal court.
The "catch" here is that, if I'm recalling correctly, Texans won relatively progressive rights under common law marriage in the last 20 years. It seems like it will be pretty hard to uphold common law marriages in Texas. The chinks in the armor may appear when the wrong people lose everything in a "common law divorce" based on the fact that there can be no common law marriage.
no subject
1) we can maybe, probably ban same-sex marriage ... based on "precedent"
2) but if we ban all civil unions and other legal arrangements for just gay people, the law will soon be overturned because it's discriminatory against one group (+ there are probably valid precedents supporting legal alternatives to marriage).
3) therefore we ban all marriage
4) when the gays challenge this in court based on the fact that it singles them out for mistreatment - HA ... this applies to everyone ... not mistreatment against you
5) when this is challenged based on the fact that all marriages in Texas are now verbotten we say - "oh come on, don't be silly now. this law was never intended to apply to heterosexual married couples ... so conservative (therefore "non-activist" yeah right) judge you have a handy out to rule to uphold the ban but exempt hetero's because we all know that the lawmakers didn't intend them when they wrote this amendment to save marriage.
6) Mmm ... this cake is lovely to have and to eat!
Ok. Sooner or later, someone will say enough of the foolishness ... but I bet it takes a good long while for the test cases to line up in the proper alignment to force a conservative court to rule to overturn. Or one day in many years, Texas will have a more liberal court.
The "catch" here is that, if I'm recalling correctly, Texans won relatively progressive rights under common law marriage in the last 20 years. It seems like it will be pretty hard to uphold common law marriages in Texas. The chinks in the armor may appear when the wrong people lose everything in a "common law divorce" based on the fact that there can be no common law marriage.