Idaho gay marriage bill
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“I believe that the state of Idaho should have the opportunity to choose to align their policy with these timeless truths.”
Edward Clark from the Idaho Family Policy Center, a conservative Christian lobbying group, also supported the bill.
“The Supreme Court violated the Constitution,” said Clark. Resolutions are not laws, and state legislatures lack the power to dismantle marriage equality.
During the Jim Crow era, segregation was justified based on states’ rights. This bill not only harms same-sex couples, it sets a dangerous precedent of using government authority to impose one narrow religious interpretation of marriage on all people.”
Views on same-sex marriage remain divided among religious practitioners. "A majority of Americans of all political affiliations support marriage equality.
The law does not enshrine a right to same-sex or interracial marriage nationwide, but instead requires all states to recognize these marriages if legally certified in the past or in places where they were legally performed.
The Supreme Court cannot simply revisit a past opinion, but the court could take up a future case on the issue.
Same-sex couples across the country have long had concerns about the fate of legalized gay and lesbian marriages.
In Rochester, New York, the city's First Universalist Church asked themselves what they could do to affirm LGBTQ identities as a religious organization amid a rise in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
“The state of Idaho has an obligation to hold the court accountable.”
After nearly two hours of testimony, the committee voted along party lines to move the resolution to the House with a do-pass recommendation.
Idaho Legislature's first order of business: overturning same-sex marriage
The Idaho Legislature’s first initiative of the year blasts same-sex marriage, calling on the U.S.
Supreme Court to let states once again regulate the relationship.
The 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. The majority of in-person testifiers spoke against the resolution, detailing experiences with friends and family, personal struggles with their own identities and state and religious separation.
Rep. Connecticut, and interracial couples to marry, Loving v.
Hodges and “restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman.”
The resolution goes to the full House for a vote.
The two-page resolution refers to Obergefell as an “illegitimate overreach” of authority, as well as an “inversion of the original meaning of liberty” as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.
The emotionally charged hearing started with a mass walkout in protest from audience members, with some returning to deliver in-person testimony.
“The Confederate states made similar claims to perpetuate slavery. Heather Scott, R- Blanchard, said the resolution is based entirely on “federalism” and states’ rights.
“This is about federalism, not defining marriage,” Scott said. "We understand that queer and trans people have been here and have existed in times when oppression has been great and where we have had to hide, but we have never ceased to exist ...
In my denomination, we've been doing queer weddings since well before it was legal, and we will continue to do them well after."
The Idaho House argues that "marriage as an institution has been recognized as the union of one man and one woman for more than two thousand years, and within common law, the basis of the United States' Anglo-American legal tradition, for more than 800 years."
The resolution states that the Supreme Court decision is "in complete contravention of their own state constitutions and the will of their voters, thus undermining the civil liberties of those states' residents and voters."
A 2024 Gallup poll found that 69% of Americans continue to believe that marriage between same-sex couples should be legal, and 64% say gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable.
Sarah Warbelow, the vice president for legal affairs for the Human Rights Campaign, criticized the Idaho effort.
"This cruel action by Idaho Republicans amounts to nothing more than shouting at the wind," said Warbelow.
Because any substantive due process decision is 'demonstrably erroneous,' we have a duty to 'correct the error' established in those precedents."
Lawrence v. A Pew Research religious landscape study found that there was a nearly even divide between Christians in favor of and against same-sex marriage, with younger generations being more likely to accept gay marriage.
Advocates for the resolution argued that Idaho is obligated to challenge the Supreme Court’s decision on the premise of federal overreach and religious observance.
Julianne Young, former state representative from Blackfoot, said she supported the resolution because of her beliefs on marriage and family.
“This act of sheer judicial hubris has effectively undefined marriage,” Young said.
Texas overturned a law criminalizing same-sex sexual conduct and Griswold v. “We can have all those discussions on whatever other cases you’re talking about, but it needs to be done at the state with the people in a hearing like this, where we can actually hear testimony and make decisions as a state which way we want to go.”
Sue Latta, the plaintiff in Latta v.
“Should this memorial include Loving, Griswold and Obergefell?”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Scott responded. Dozens were heard, with an estimated 225 total people signing up to testify on both sides of the matter. “It’s about states’ rights. Bruce Skaug (R-Nampa), an attorney who supported the resolution’s introduction, focused on that particular aspect of the legislation.
“I see this as not an issue on same-sex marriage, but on judicial activism and states’ rights,” Skaug said.
No one else spoke in favor or in opposition of its introduction Tuesday.
Lawmakers on the House State Affairs Committee, including both Democrats, unanimously voted to introduce it.
Reps.
Todd Achilles, D-Boise, expressed his opposition to the rhetoric.
“My concern with the argument around states’ rights is the history associated with it,” Achilles said. Rev. Sara LaWall, a minister of the Boise Universal Unitarian Fellowship, spoke to the emotional and spiritual significance of marriage recognition.
“Marriage holds a profound spiritual, emotional and societal significance,” LaWall said.