Texas Lawmaker's Gay-Marriage Complaint Is Extremely Confused

A Texas state representative has filed a complaint about the legality of recent decisions on gay marriage; trouble is, his complaint gets just about everything wrong. Tea Party lawmaker Tony Tinderholt described his reasons for filing the complaint on Facebook: "Judge David Wahlberg issued a ruling that the state's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and ordered a circuit court clerk to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple," he started out. First off, it wasn't David Wahlberg who issued that ruling; it was Probate Judge Guy Herman, writes Bud Kennedy in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. On Facebook, Tinderholt continues, "This judge deliberately violated statutory law that requires judges to notify the Office of Attorney General before ruling on constitutionality."

And, in the complaint itself, Tinderholt notes that "constitutional challenge by a judge requires notice (to the Texas attorney general) and must wait until 45 days after to enter final judgement." Well, the judge he appears to have been referring to, Guy Herman, did in fact notify the attorney general, the Houston Chronicle reports. The AG's office decided to stay out of the matter. Tinderholt has said his concern was about activist judges and not gay marriage itself, Kennedy writes. Marriage, however, is something Tinderholt knows a thing or two about, according to the Chronicle, which notes that he's been married five times.