Texas Judge Tonya Parker is sparking controversy with her refusal to marry straight couples until the LGBT community has equal rights under the law, reports the NY Daily News.
Parker explained her decision at a monthly meeting for the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas:
“I do not perform them because it is not an equal application of the law. Period,” she said.
According the Daily News, Parker, the first openly lesbian African-American elected official in the history of the state according to NBC News, is honest with the couples that she turns away, refusing to let them leave unclear about her decision:
“I use it as my opportunity to give them a lesson about marriage equality in the state because I feel like I have to tell them why I’m turning them away,” said Parker. “So I usually will offer them something along the lines of, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t perform marriage ceremonies because we are in a state that does not have marriage equality, and until it does, I am not going to partially apply the law to one group of people that doesn’t apply to another group of people.”
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