STATEMENT OF HANK GILBERT, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR, ON DALLAS COUNTY SAME-SEX DIVORCE DECISION

TYLER—Hank Gilbert, Democratic candidate or governor, issued the following statement concerning the decision in Dallas County on Tuesday granting a same-sex couple married in Massachusetts a divorce in Texas:

“A private matter between two people, lawfully married in another state, and a Texas judge has unnecessarily become a media spectacle due to the poor judgment of Attorney General Greg Abbott who decided to interject his office into a simple divorce.

General Abbott made the decision to waste taxpayer money on a matter that clearly did not involve his office. I call on him to quit wasting state funds on an attempt to score political points.

The judge, in this instance, was completely in the right and deserves the full- throated support of every Texan and all of our state officials for her effort to make this as simple a process as possible.

The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution [Article IV, Section 1] stipulates that states recognize contracts from other states. The marriage bond is universal. If you are married in another state and live in or move to Texas, you can get divorced here. A same-sex couple should not receive treatment from our courts that differs in any way from the treatment given any other couple. For General Abbott to say that appealing the decision will ‘defend the traditional definition of marriage’ is a fallacy.

This is precisely the problem with state government today: politicians placing their own interests and prejudices ahead of the best interests of all Texans.”