Ken Paxton Asks Judge to Cancel Contempt Hearing on Gay Marriage

[TexasTowelie]

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office says he shouldn’t face a contempt hearing for failing to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling, and no longer needs judicial supervision to ensure he’s doing so.

In an advisory submitted on Monday’s deadline, the AG’s office assured U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia that state officials have implemented new policies for issuing birth and death certificates to same-sex couples, and are processing all pending applications.

Garcia initially scheduled a hearing for Aug. 12 on whether Paxton and Kirk Cole, interim commissioner of the Department of State Health Services, should be held in contempt for not providing an accurate death certificate to a gay widower. But Garcia postponed the hearing until September after officials pledged to comply with the high court’s June 26 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.

In Monday’s filing, assistant solicitor general Michael Murphy argued the hearing is no longer necessary, and objected to “the unprecedented threat of contempt” in the first place. Quoting Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Murphy suggested officials simply needed time to adapt after the high court “unsettled … a ‘millennia’-old definition of marriage.”

Read more: http://www.texasobserver.org/ken-paxton-asks-judge-to-cancel-contempt-hearing-on-gay-marriage/

[hobbit709]

1. I thought Abbott was dumber than a box of rocks

But Paxton is dumber than a truckload of rocks.