In this case, and pro-gay PC interpretations of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protections Clause aside, the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect so-called gay rights. So the states are free to make laws which discriminate against the gay agenda, imo, as long as such laws don't also unreasonably abridge enumerated rights.
For example, note that the Supreme Court allowed a state to discriminate on the basis of sex as evidenced by Minor v. Happersett . More specifically, the Court said, "we're not buying it," to Virginia Minor's argument that her citizenship, in conjunction with the Equal Protections Clause of the then newly ratified 14th Amendment, automatically gave her the right to vote.
However, the Court explained that the 14th Amendment did not add any new protections to the Constitution.
“3. The right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that amendment does not add to these privileges and immunities. It simply furnishes additional guaranty for the protection of such as the citizen already had [emphasis added].” —Minor v. Happersett, 1874.
So since women didn't have the express right to vote before the 14th Amendment was ratified, they didn't have the right to vote after 14A was ratified. And the same argument reasonably applies to constitutionally unprotected gay "rights" imo.
But also note that for her efforts, Ms Minor saw the subsequent ratification of the 19th Amendment which effectively gave women the right to vote. Pro-gay activist judges, on the other hand, are wrongly trying to legislate gay rights from the bench, outside the framework of te Constitution.
Good, it's a state judge this time. Texans need to work with their state lawmakers to do the following to prevent judicial activism in state courts. Texas needs a law to require all state judges to officially, promptly and publically indicate the exact constitutional clause which they claim makes a given Texas law either constitutional or unconstitutional. The law should also have a provision to allow a petition to remove judges who cannot defend their decisions with the Constitution from the bench with possible fines and possible jail time.This would not be problematic with state judges interpreting state law. The only problem is when state judges have to interpret federal law. Neither state statute nor constitutional provision can restrict how state courts may interpret federal law, but only the U.S. Supreme Court can do so. However, wholly apart from this issue, for prudential reasons, the judge should have stayed a decision pending the outcome of the In Re Marriage of J.B. and H.B. appeal before the Texas Supreme Court. Courts have wide latitude in the timing of cases before them, and a pending appeal in another case that could likely decide the issues is certainly a reason to stay the case.