Texas Marriage Equality Plaintiff Runs for State Senate

A man who sued Texas for the right to marry his same-sex partner is running for the state's Senate next year.

Mark Phariss, who with partner Victor Holmes and another couple sued over Texas's ban on same-sex marriage in 2013, announced Tuesday that he will run as a Democrat in a Dallas-area district, The Dallas Morning News reports. He would be the first openly gay state senator. There have been out LGBT members of the state House.

"When I was accepting the fact that I was gay, there were two things I kind of thought I had to give up: one, getting married, and two, running for political office," Phariss told the News. "I need to quit assuming what people will think. I need to allow them the choice."

Phariss is a lawyer in the Dallas suburb of Plano, with a practice focusing on business. The suit that he and Holmes, an Air Force veteran, brought against the state's marriage ban was in progress when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all such bans in June 2015. They married a few months later, having been together for 18 years at that point.

Phariss said recent Democratic victories in Virginia and Alabama encouraged him to run for office. One other Democrat, Brian Chaput, has announced his candidacy for the same seat, from District 8 in Collin County, encompassing several Dallas suburbs. There are also two Republicans seeking the seat, Angela Paxton and Phillip Huffines. Paxton is the wife of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has an anti-LGBT record, and Huffines is the twin brother of Don Huffines, a state senator representing Dallas. The party primaries will be March 6 and the general election November 6.

Phariss has already received endorsements from Jim Obergefell, the Ohio man who was the named plaintiff in the Supreme Court marriage equality case, and Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In addition to his role in the marriage equality case, Phariss is known for his friendship with an antigay Republican officeholder, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who was previously the state's attorney general and defended the marriage ban. They met in law school at Vanderbilt University, and during the marriage case Phariss recalled visiting Abbott in the hospital in 1984, when Abbott had suffered a spinal injury. "He was a very good friend then, and I consider him a very good friend now," Phariss said in 2014, although the two have lost touch over the years.

Of his legislative priorities, Phariss told the News, "The legislature needs to refocus its attention on our state's important issues -- like attracting good jobs and reducing traffic congestion -- and avoid divisive policies that hurt our state's reputation and competitiveness, like 'show me your papers' laws. Most importantly, the legislature needs to fund our children's educational programs." Getting in a dig at Texas's failed attempt to pass an anti-transgender "bathroom bill," he added, "Classrooms, not bathrooms, will determine our children's and our state's future."

"I'm absolutely gay. There is no way to hide that," he continued. "But I'm running as a Texan, and I will absolutely represent every constituent in my district if I win. So even those who vote against me -- even those who vote against me because I'm gay, I will want to listen to them and represent them. ... Our marriage equality case was all about saying we are just like everyone else."