Sloppiness loses Texas same-sex divorce case

Two Texas women who married in Massachusetts in 2004 saw their divorce blessed by the Texas Supreme Court on Friday, but it’s more a legal footnote than a precedent for same-sex marriage.

Mostly, the court’s 5-3 decision spotlighted sloppy work by the state attorney general’s office under former AG and now Gov. Greg Abbott. The state argues that Texas only recognizes marriages between a man and a woman, so there can be no divorce between two men or two women.

Angelique Naylor filed for divorce from Sabina Daly in 2009. After a two-day hearing, during which the pair reached an out-of-court agreement, a Travis County judge granted their divorce in 2010. State attorneys contested the ruling the next day.

The Supreme Court said the state had “monitored this ongoing dispute for months” and “had adequate opportunity to intervene and simply failed to do so” until after the the case was over.

This story was originally published June 22, 2015 at 5:49 PM with the headline "Sloppiness loses Texas same-sex divorce case."