{"id":29276,"date":"2025-10-31T11:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T11:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/29276\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T11:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T11:21:07","slug":"texas-supreme-court-says-judges-can-refuse-to-perform-gay-marriages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/29276\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Supreme Court says judges can refuse to perform gay marriages"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Texas Supreme Court recently amended rules to state that judges in Texas may now refuse to perform same-sex marriages on religious grounds without facing sanctions.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to know:<\/p>\n

What does the rule change mean?<\/p>\n

Gay marriage remains legal in Texas. But the rule change means that judges across Texas can now refuse to perform same-sex marriages without facing any discipline from a judicial ethics commission.<\/p>\n

Previously, a McLennan County justice of the peace faced discipline from a state judicial ethics commission after she refused to perform gay marriages while also officiating marriages between opposite sex couples.<\/p>\n

That justice of the peace, Dianne Hensley<\/a>, has been fighting a sanction from the State Commission of Judicial Conduct in court since 2016. In June 2024<\/a>, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled Hensley could sue the commission after it issued her a public warning for refusing to perform gay marriages while still performing opposite-sex marriages.<\/p>\n

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Her refusal to conduct gay marriages ran counter to the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which required judges to either perform both same-sex and opposite-sex marriages or none at all. Hensley has said in court filings that performing same-sex marriages violates her religious beliefs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How did the ruling come about?<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court of Texas issued an amendment<\/a> to the \u201ccanons\u201d of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct on Oct. 24.<\/p>\n

The change was not prompted by a lawsuit and was issued by the justices without comment. The eight sitting justices signed a three-page document that stated, \u201cIt is not a violation of these canons for a judge to publicly refrain from performing a wedding ceremony based upon a sincerely held religious belief.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was quickly interpreted to free any judge across the state from any possible discipline for refusing to perform gay marriages based on religious objections.<\/p>\n

What is the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct<\/p>\n

The code is an ethical guideline for judges across Texas, including justices of the peace and district court judges.<\/p>\n

The code is designed to regulate the conduct of judges. It is enforced by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, a panel of appointees from the Supreme Court of Texas, the governor\u2019s office and the State Bar of Texas.<\/p>\n

However, the two appointees from the State Bar of Texas might be removed from the board if voters approve Proposition 12, which would allow the governor to appoint a majority of the commission\u2019s members.<\/p>\n

Abbott previously removed two of his nominees<\/a> to the commission after they voted to discipline Hensley.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n

Hensley\u2019s lawsuit is still pending in a Travis County district court. And the makeup of the State Commission of Judicial Conduct will be decided Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The commission withdrew its public warning to Hensley in September 2024. Other judges have sued over possibly being sanctioned for refusing to perform same-sex marriages. And a federal challenge could be in the making. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Supreme Court recently amended rules to state that judges in Texas may now refuse to perform…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5303,287,27,29,28,3298],"class_list":["post-29276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-lgbt","tag-politics","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}