Texas Legislative Guide

Social conservative lawmakers were largely unsuccessful in their efforts to further restrict same-sex marriage in Texas, despite the fact that there's already a constitutional amendment here that defines marriage as being one man and one woman. 

Rep. Cecil Bell's bill to prohibit state or local funds from being used to issue same-sex marriage licenses — a move designed to defend so-called "traditional marriage" in the event the U.S. Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage — ended up being tacked onto a county government bill as an amendment in the House. But there weren't the votes to bring it up in the Senate, leading some GOP lawmakers in the upper chamber to offer a non-binding resolution recognizing marriage as being between a man and a woman. 

That resolution — which makes no changes to the law — passed over the objections of most of the chamber's Democrats. 

The session also saw some interesting developments among a couple of GOP lawmakers in the House; Rep. Sarah Davis, R-West University Place, came out in favor of gay marriage, saying it didn't affect her own marriage. Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas, said he wasn't ready to take that stand yet, but called Davis' position "courageous." 

Updated: May 29, 2015