void in Texas any same-sex marriage or civil union. This statute also prohibits the state or any agency or political subdivision of the state from giving effect to same-sex marriages or civil unions performed in other jurisdictions. On November 8, 2005, Texas voters approved a proposition that amended the state constitution to define marriage as consisting "only of the union of one man and one woman" and prohibiting the state or any political subdivision of the state from creating or recognizing "any legal status identical or similar to marriage." In the 2006 election, independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman becomes one of the first candidates for the office to indicate same-sex marriage rights in Texas, saying "I support gay marriage. I believe they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us." In 2009, Houston City Comptroller Annise Parker was elected the first openly lesbian mayor of a major city in Texas. On October 2, 2009, a Texas district court judge in the case of In Re Marriage of J.B. and H.B. granted a divorce to two men married in Massachusetts, ruling unconstitutional the state's same-sex marriage ban. On August 31, 2010, the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas reversed the lower court, ruling, among other things, that the same-sex marriage ban does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. On January 7, 2011, the Third Court of Appeals in Austin in the case of State of Texas v. Angelique S. Naylor and Sabina Daly rejected, on procedural grounds, the Texas attorney general's appeal of a divorce granted by a lower court to a same-sex couple married in Massachusetts. Both cases are pending before the Texas Supreme Court. In 2012, after Obama's endorsement of same sex marriage, the Texas Democratic Party became the first southern Democratic state party to include support of same-sex marriage in its platform. In 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized throughout the United States. In Texas specifically, 2,500 same-sex marriage licenses were issued in the state that year. In 2021, Governor Greg Abbott signed a House Bill stating that if students are to play sports in the state of Texas, they have to be on the team that is of the gender they were assigned at birth. See also LGBT rights in Texas References