Gay Texas judge Tonya Parker refuses to wed straight couples (VIDEO)

Tonya Parker, an openly gay judge in Texas, refuses to marry straight couples until same-sex couples can also wed in the state.

The Dallas County judge explained her decision Tuesday during a meeting of the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, local TV station DFW reported.

“I do not perform them because it is not an equal application of the law. Period,” she said, according to the Dallas Voice, a newspaper for the gay community.

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In a video of her comments posted by the Dallas Voice, Parker told the audience that while she refuses to conduct the ceremonies, she explains her reasoning to the couples and passes them along to another judge.

“I use it as my opportunity to give them a lesson about marriage equality in the state because I feel like I have to tell them why I’m turning them away,” she said. “So I usually will offer them something along the lines of, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t perform marriage ceremonies because we are in a state that does not have marriage equality, and until it does, I am not going to partially apply the law to one group of people that doesn’t apply to another group of people."

“And it’s kind of oxymoronic for me to perform ceremonies that can’t be performed for me, so I’m not going to do it,” she added.

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Parker is the first openly lesbian African-American elected official in Texas, where same-sex marriage is illegal, the Dallas Voice reported.

Earlier this week in San Antonio, a Presbyterian minister was censured for performing same-sex marriages in California while it was legal to do so, the Santa Rosa, Calif., Press Democrat reported.

The Rev. Jane Spahr told the newspaper she performed the marriages as a matter of conscience.