AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry has signed a law preventing his state from legally recognizing same-sex unions formed in other states.

The May 27 signing of the Defense of Marriage Act makes Texas the 37th state to enact such a law, said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Plano-based Free Market Foundation, a group that describes itself as dedicated to strengthening families.

Already, Texas only permits marriage between a man and a woman.

“What this does, it protects your state from having a different definition forced on you from another state,” Shackelford said.

The new law denies same-sex couples who were joined in a marriage or civil union in another state the right to claim any legal protection or benefit granted to married people in Texas, including the ability to divorce or to demand job benefits given to married people.

The law won’t stop couples of the same sex from living together nor will it deny same-sex couples the right to bequeath property or enter into powers of attorney, said the bill’s author, Republican Sen. Jeff Wentworth.

Critics say the bill represents a right-wing agenda of intolerance.

“It’s about politics. It’s about scapegoating gays and lesbians,” said Randall Ellis, executive director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby of Texas.

Ellis said the act was unnecessary because existing statutes specify that, in Texas, state laws apply even to marriages performed elsewhere.

Supporters said the act was needed to protect Texas from the decisions of judges in other states where same-sex unions could be recognized.

“Like the vast majority of Texans, I believe that marriage represents a sacred union between a man and a woman,” Perry said in a statement. “With passage of the Defense of Marriage Act, Texas now joins more than 30 states in reinforcing that basic belief.”

In March, a Texas judge dismissed a divorce request filed by two men who had obtained a civil union in Vermont last year and wanted it dissolved in Texas. State Attorney General Greg Abbott said the court could not grant a divorce where no marriage existed.

On its website, the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas referred to the new law as the “Damn Oppressive Marriage Act.”