AUSTIN – Texas officials are citing a federal judge’s decision to uphold Puerto Rico’s gay marriage ban in their own legal battle over the issue.

In a brief filed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Oct. 28, Texas Solicitor General Jonathan F. Mitchell says the judge was right when he ruled Puerto Rico’s ban on same-sex marriage should remain intact.

U.S. District Judge Juan M. Perez-Gimenez relied on two arguments in his 21-page opinion that have been widely panned by other federal judges: that the issue was not substantial enough to require federal attention, and that the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year on the issue did not make marriage “a fundamental right.”

“Conde-Vidal concludes that the definition of marriage is to be decided by the people and their elected representatives, not by federal judges,” Cayce wrote, citing the Puerto Rico case. “The sound decision in Conde-Vidal deserves this Court’s consideration.”

Also on Oct. 28, the same-sex couples in the Puerto Rico case appealed the judges’ ruling. It will now be heard by the Firth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Texas’ gay marriage ban, a constitutional amendment passed in 2005, is currently being challenged in court after a San Antonio judge struck it down as unconstitutional last year. Attorney General Greg Abbott appealed the ruling to the New Orleans appeals court; oral arguments are scheduled for the week of Jan. 5, 2015.

Last month, an Austin-area woman who lost her wife to cancer filed suit against Acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Carolyn Colvin, seeking to receive federal survivor benefits and death payments available to widows of opposite-sex couples.