Senator Carona’s Gay Marriage Comments: Leading Pro-Family Group Reacts
This week, the Dallas Voice, the leading lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) media source in North Texas, reported that Republican State Senator John Carona will support legislation “in Texas to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment; offer domestic partner benefits to state university employees; and allow same-sex adoptive parents to have both names on birth certificates.” Senator Carona is also quoted as saying that his position on gay marriage is “very undecided” and “evolving,” but he’s “not there yet.” Full article is here.
In response to this issue, Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values said:
“We are very disappointed by Senator Carona’s comments in the Dallas Voice article about marriage and support for the top legislative agenda of the homosexual lobby. We are aware that Senator Carona has expressed support for marriage before, but his comments this week suggest that his views on marriage could change to support gay marriage in the future. We also remain very concerned that such statements regarding marriage and the LGBT agenda would ever be uttered by Senator Carona or any other member of the Texas Legislature who is believed to support family values. As expected, we will continue to monitor this issue closely as we know that the homosexual lobby will be putting substantial resources behind attacking our state constitution and other marriage attacking legislation that Senator Carona intends to support, according to the article. It is very clear, these so-called “gay rights” measures are nothing more than a direct attack on marriage as it is defined by our Texas Constitution. The definition of marriage is not “evolving,” nor has it ever been.”
The Texas Constitution defines marriage as between one man and one woman and also states that “this state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage,” clearly making it unconstitutional to have any law that recognizes “domestic partners.” Currently, voters in 32 out of 32 states have approved constitutional language at the ballot supporting marriage as between one man and one woman, with North Carolina being the most recent earlier this year.