U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ruled on Feb. 26 that Texas’ state constitutional ban on marriage for same-sex couples violates the U.S. Constitution and granted a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by two same-sex couples. The ruling enjoins Texas officials and the Bexar County Clerk, defendants in the case that was filed in the Western District of Texas in San Antonio, from enforcing the state’s constitutional and Family Code provisions barring recognition of such marriages.
But same-sex couples will not be able to get married immediately in Texas. That’s because Garcia, with a nod to the confusion in Utah’s same-sex marriage litigation, stayed the execution of the preliminary injunction pending any appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
