Texans are especially concerned that two people of the same sex might attempt to marry in their state -- so much so that they passed a web of laws at one point inadvertently technically banning all marriage in the state. Fortunately for Texans (or maybe unfortunately, depending on your views on marriage, the courts of the state generously interpreted those laws as not meaning to ban opposite-sex marriage. After all, why throw the baby out with the gay bathwater?

But an even more amusing outcome is the Texas effort to make darn sure no one gets something over on them by prohibiting post-sex-change people from marrying someone of a gender other than the one they were stamped-official born with. That's right by gum, if you were born with a penis -- even a rudimentary one which clearly didn't belong there, as happens on rare occasion -- but are now biologically fully a woman, vagina and ovaries and all, under Texas law you can only marry a fellow vagina-bearer. And vice versa. If Cher's son Chaz Bono (born a woman, Chastity Bono, but surgically made into a man) were to move to Texas, he would have no marital option but to wed a man.

Worse yet, if you were already in a gay marriage, hailing from Iowa or Massachusetts or Hawaii or New York, for example, and you moved to Texas-- well, that is it, you are stuck. Because Texas doesn't recognize your marriage, neither will it allow you to divorce. If a gay couple goes to a divorce court in Texas, they'll be told, "get lost, you've got to stay gay married as long as you're in Texas!!" On the upside, this might provide a good incentive for a gay-married pair whose relationship is on the rocks to relocate to Texas, thereby ensuring that they'll need to work through their problems, divorce no longer being legally available to them.

So that's Texas gay marriage in a nutshell, folks. Now, saddle up and ride hard!! Yeehaw!!



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For THE IRON NODER CHALLENGE 5: THE FERROUS FRONTIER

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