You are arguing process rather than principle.

As a commenter on another blog pointed out , Judges do not sit as arbiters of public policy in the abstract, is what I meant to say. They’re forced to wait on specific cases, involving specific parties, and their decisions in the final analysis only apply to those individuals. They’re enforceable only when similarly situated individuals walk into their court and say, “I want the same rights you gave Jane Roe [of Roe v. Wade]in that other case.”

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Texas Supreme Court overturns the Third Circuit’s ruling and remands for a decision on the merits, and the Thirds Circuit rules that Texas state law authorizes divorce, the court order applies only to the litigants. It is when other similarly-situated individuals go to a court within the Third Circuit asking for the same legal rights that the Naylors did, that the bhinding effect of precedent takes place.

In a similar vein, in Loving v. Virginia, the actual order for the Supreme Court was to reverse the Lovings’ convictions, no more. (“These convictions must be reversed.”) For other interracial couples, Loving would only come into play if they are prosecuted for violating an anti-miscegenation law, or they have cause to sue to compel issuance of a marriage license.

More meaningfully, courts rule all the time on things not covered explicitly by law, so a ruling here is not irrational.

You are correct that this only applies to this case (as the appeal occurred too late and presumably would be entered timely in other circumstances).

However, you misunderstand our legal system if you think that cases are entirely independent of each other. Precedent is important, and in civil rights cases (which this is not) determination applies broadly to the class of individuals.

But that is the nature of trial courts- they can only determine the rights and duties of the parties before them.