AUSTIN -- Hours after the Travis County clerk issued the state's first same- sex marriage license, Texas' attorney general said the marriage is void. Attorney General Ken Paxton said Thursday the Texas Supreme Court granted his request to stay two court rulings declaring Texas' ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.
"The Court's action upholds our state constitution and stays these rulings by activist judges in Travis County," Paxton said in a statement. "The same- sex marriage license issued by the Travis County Clerk is void, just as any license issued in violation of state law would be. I will continue to defend the will of the people of Texas, who have defined marriage as between one man and one woman, against any judicial activism or overreach."
According to the Travis County Clerk's office, Judge David Wahlberg signed a state court order from the 167th District Court to Travis County Clerk Dana Debeauvoir on Thursday, commanding Debeauvoir to "cease and desist relying on the unconstitutional Texas prohibitions against same-sex marriage as a basis for not issuing a marriage license specifically to Plaintiffs Sarah Goodfriend and Suzanne Bryant," due to the fact that Goodfriend has ovarian cancer.
According to a press release from Katie Naranjo with GNI Strategies, a campaign strategy firm, Goodfriend and Bryant were married by their Rabbi Kerry Baker at 9:15 a.m. Thursday at the Travis County Tax Assessor Collector's Office in Austin.
Despite the attorney general's statement, Debeauvoir said the marriage still stands. In a statement, the clerk's office said, "The Texas Supreme Court order on the Motion for Temporary Relief has stayed further proceedings in the trial court, and is not directed at the County Clerk."
"I have every reason to believe that the actions I took this morning were legally correct based on the trial court's order, and that the license my office issued was then and is now valid. There is no further action for me to take at this time," Debeauvoir said in a statement.
Goodfriend and Bryant filed a petition for relief following Judge Guy Herman's ruling on Tuesday that Texas' ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
"We want to open the door for all LGBT families to have the right to marry in Texas," Bryant said in a statement. "We were both born in Texas, came back to Texas after we met to build a family and establish our lives here. We plan to die here, and we have waited to get married because, as proud Texans, we want a Texas marriage license."
Bryant and Goodfriend have been together for 30 years. Goodfriend was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in May. She had emergency surgery after her diagnosis and her last chemotherapy treatment in September.
"When you get out of chemotherapy, I think all of us wonder if the cancer grows back along with our hair growing back," Goodfriend said. "This really is very, very meaningful to our family to have the kind of ability to make personal decisions, health decisions and financial decisions as a family going forward."
Goodfriend also said she did not want Bryant to experience the same problems that Sonemaly Phrasavath experienced. In October 2013, Phrasavath's partner Stella Powell was diagnosed with colon cancer and died eight months later. Powell did not have a valid will, and because her marriage was not recognized by the state, her belongings went to her siblings instead of her partner. Phrasavath sued for her part of the inheritance.
"I want to finally be able to marry the love of my life," Goodfriend said. "Having faced a life-threatening disease I realized time is precious and that I wanted to spend it on the things that mattered most -- my family."
The couple's daughters, Dawn and Ting, joined them at Thursday's ceremony.
"The world is changing, and it's no longer the benefits of, the man works, the woman stays home and cleans," Dawn Goodfriend said. "That's just not the way the world works anymore, and I think Texas needs to step it up and get with the program."
The clerk's office stressed that the order applies only to this specific couple, and any additional licenses issued to same-sex couples in Texas must also be court-ordered.
Read the court order below (mobile users go here to read the full order).
