Texas lawmaker married five times files error-filled complaint against gay marriage

Source: Houston Chronicle

Texas lawmaker married five times files error-filled complaint against gay marriage
Dylan Baddour | March 2, 2015 | Updated: March 2, 2015 6:03pm

A Tea Party lawmaker erred last week when he filed a handwritten complaint against the judge who permitted Texas' first same-sex marriage. State Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, a veteran groom with five marriages under his belt, called out the wrong judge and made a flawed assertion of Texas law.

That's according to Bud Kennedy of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, who reported the blunder in a Saturday column, three days after Tinderholt submitted the complaint to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

On his Facebook page, Tinderholt announced the filing and wrote, "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. This judge deliberately violated statutory law that requires judges to notify the Office of Attorney General before ruling on constitutionality."

The first problem: Wahlberg didn't rule the marriage ban unconstitutional. That was Probate Judge Guy Herman, who issued the decision as part of an estate claim by a woman who wanted her deceased female partner legally recognized as her spouse. Wahlberg used Herman's ruling to marry a lesbian couple in Austin last month, saying a terminal illness made the couple unable to wait for a final ruling on the constitutional challenge.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/Texas-lawmaker-and-five-time-groom-makes-6110172.php