Republicans in 9 States Push to Overturn Gay Marriage
Republican lawmakers in nine states are either calling for the overturn of gay marriage or seeking to undermine it.
Republicans in nine states are calling for the overturn of marriage equality.
In Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, lawmakers have introduced resolutions demanding the U.S. Supreme Court reverse its landmark 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the court struck down all existing state-level same-sex marriage bans.
Last month, the Idaho House of Representatives voted 46-24 to approve one such resolution, asking the nation’s highest court to “restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman.”
While the resolution is non-binding and doesn’t require the Supreme Court to take action, Republican lawmakers see it as a “messaging” bill that expresses their extreme displeasure with same-sex marriage.
Earlier this week, the North Dakota House of Representatives approved a nearly identical bill on a 52-40 vote.
Meanwhile, in Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas, lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to grant special privileges to heterosexual marriages by allowing only straight couples to enter so-called “covenant marriages.”
Those bills don’t specifically mention same-sex marriage or Obergefell. Instead, they are intended to encourage opposite-sex couples to remain together, imposing faith-based counseling requirements before couples can separate or divorce and demanding that couples pledge to “take all reasonable efforts” to preserve such unions.
One Oklahoma lawmaker, State Sen. David Bullard, has gone so far as to introduce a child tax credit that would only apply to married heterosexual couples with biological children conceived during the marriage.
These efforts come at a time when conservatives see themselves politically on the rise following Donald Trump’s presidential victory. They also mark a shift in focus regarding legislation governing LGBTQ rights.
In recent years, Republican lawmakers have been primarily obsessed with restricting or repealing the rights of transgender people to access certain spaces, have their gender identity recognized, change the sex markers on their vital documents, or access gender-affirming health care, even for adults.
But now, with most red states having passed such restrictions, social conservatives believe the time is ripe to begin eroding rights for same-sex couples and their families.
Opponents of same-sex marriage have claimed that the introduction of same-sex marriage is “targeting Christians,” pointing to disputes between same-sex couples and those who object to same-sex nuptials over wedding cakes, accommodations, or other benefits given to married couples as evidence that legalizing same-sex marriage has been problematic.
In Michigan, State Rep. Josh Schriver (R-Oxford) introduced a resolution calling for the overturn of Obergefell and condemning that high court’s decision.
During a press conference in which he refused to take any questions, Schriver cited the supremacy of Christian beliefs on same-sex marriage, asserting that the Supreme Court’s decision had “defaced the definition of marriage, undermined our God given rights, increased persecution of Christians and confused the American family structure.”
During his press conference, Schriver claimed that allowing same-sex couples to marry “undermines the legal and moral foundation” of the United States, and deprives children of a “fundamental right to be born and raised by a mother and father.”
He also claimed, without evidence, that children raised by same-sex couples face more significant developmental delays and challenges with education, employment, and self-sufficiency.
Schriver said that legalizing same-sex marriage “has widened a portal where gays, queers, transsexuals, polygamists, minor attracted persons and other perverts advance attacks on our children.”
After Schriver exited the room and refused to take questions, State Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), the state’s first openly gay state senator, stepped up to the microphone and began attacking Schriver’s resolution as not only a distraction but as “buffoonish,” reported the Michigan Advance.
“I think that people respect their LGBTQ neighbors, their LGBTQ family members,” Moss said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of people sitting at their kitchen table thinking about their neighbors’ marriage and how that poses a problem to the to the well-beings of their futures and their families.
“These marriages have been the law of the land for 10 years,” Moss continued. “They contribute to family security. They contribute to economic security for people here in the state of Michigan. And you know, we have real problems facing Michiganders.”
Despite Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas expressing a desire to reverse the Obergefell decision, the high court has thus far avoided taking up the issue of same-sex marriage rights.
If the court were to overturn its previous decision, the practice would be forbidden in 33 states with constitutional amendments or statutes opposing same-sex marriage. However, it would remain legal in the 17 states without prohibitions.
Even if the Supreme Court were to reverse its decision, the Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law by former President Joe Biden in 2022, would still require that both the federal government and all states — regardless of whether a state ban remains in place — to recognize the validity of same-sex marriages legally performed in the other 17 states.
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