AUSTIN, Texas — There’s not likely to be cake-cutting this time, but conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage in Texas are staging a Capitol steps rally with outspoken gay rights opponent Roy Moore.

Moore, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, made headlines nationally by instructing his state’s probate judges to refuse issuing same-sex marriage licenses after a federal judge declared Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.

In response to Moore’s appearance Monday afternoon, gay rights advocates are holding a family ice cream social elsewhere in the Capitol.

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Such tit-for-tat is nothing new. Last month, Republican state lawmakers and social conservatives held a party marking the 10th anniversary of voters’ approval of Texas’ gay marriage ban. They even crowded together to cut pink and white wedding cake

That prompted ban opponents to popularize the Twitter hashtag #hatecake.

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