Texas AG Ken Paxton's wife files for divorce, citing God and ‘recent discoveries’

The political marriage that has helped define Texas’s far-right legal crusades is unraveling in public view. Republican State Sen. Angela Paxton announced Thursday she has filed for divorce from her husband, Attorney General Ken Paxton, citing “biblical grounds” and “recent discoveries.”

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“Today, after 38 years of marriage, I filed for divorce on biblical grounds,” Angela Paxton, a Republican from McKinney, posted Thursday afternoon on X. “I believe marriage is a sacred covenant and I have earnestly pursued reconciliation. But in light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that it honors God or is loving to myself, my children, or Ken to remain in the marriage. I move forward with complete confidence that God is always working everything together for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose.”

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The couple’s shared political brand, anchored in evangelical conservatism and opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, has for years been central to their identities and to Texas Republican politics.

Ken Paxton, who has made his political name attacking LGBTQ+ rights and pushing conservative Christian legal causes, blamed “the pressures of countless political attacks and public scrutiny” for the split. He asked for "prayers and privacy," in a statement on X..

Both Paxtons have publicly opposed marriage equality and broader protections for LGBTQ+ Texans, the Texas Tribune reports. In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, Ken Paxton advised Texas county clerks they could refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples on religious grounds, a position that drew immediate legal and political backlash, according to the Texas Tribune.

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Angela Paxton has expressed similar views throughout her political career, describing marriage as a “sacred union between one man and one woman,” and resisting efforts to pass nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people. During her 2018 Senate campaign against Mark Phariss, a gay Democrat who had sued Texas for the right to marry his husband, Angela Paxton reportedly told a Republican group that “sinners” shouldn’t be sent to the Senate, a remark Phariss said underscored how intertwined the Paxtons’ religious views have been with policies that directly harm LGBTQ+ Texans, the Texas Tribune reported.

Angela Paxton has also stood by her husband through years of scandal. Ken Paxton was impeached in 2023 by the Texas House on allegations of corruption and an extramarital affair with a former Senate aide. Although the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him, testimony indicated the affair began in 2018, briefly ended when Angela Paxton discovered it in 2019, then resumed in 2020, the Tribune reports. Angela Paxton attended her husband’s Senate trial but was barred from voting on his fate, according to the Texas Tribune.

Now, their split threatens to upend Ken Paxton’s bid for the U.S. Senate, where he’s challenging Republican Sen. John Cornyn, and could complicate his pursuit of an endorsement from President Donald Trump.