As Attorney General, Abbott defended the state's ban on same-sex marriage from a constitutional challenge. In 2014, he argued in court that Texas should be allowed to prohibit same-sex marriage because LGBT individuals purportedly cannot procreate. He said that as "same-sex relationships do not naturally produce children, recognizing same-sex marriage does not further these goals to the same extent that recognizing opposite-sex marriage does." He also argued that gay individuals still have the freedom to marry, saying they are "as free to marry an opposite sex spouse as anyone else". He suggested that same-sex marriage was a slippery slope where "any conduct that has been traditionally prohibited can become a constitutional right simply by redefining it at a higher level of abstraction."