Idaho state Republicans recently introduced a formal legislative measure requesting that the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, its landmark 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. State Republicans tried the same thing last year, and it went nowhere.

State Rep. Tony Wisniewski (R) introduced a joint memorial — which is a legislative measure in which a legislature formally communicates with another federal entity — asking the court to overturn the decision, The Idaho Capital Sun reported.

Related

47 anti-LGBTQ+ organizations launch new campaign to end marriage equality

The measure argues that the court’s 2015 ruling applied a definition of liberty wouldn’t have been recognized by the country’s founders and calls the ruling’s conceptions of due process a “dangerous fiction,” KBOI reported.

The measure also called different-sex marriage “the basic of the United States’ Anglo-American legal tradition, for more than 800 years,” though the reference to the “Anglo-American legal tradition” was later removed. Wisniewski said that marriage laws are best left to states to handle.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“The government did not create families or marriage, but they have to recognize that the family is the fundamental building block of society,” Wisniewski said in a committee hearing. “The strengths that these two complementary natures of a father and a mother give strength, direction and stability to the family and therefore to society as a whole.”

While Wisniewski’s comments imply that children benefit more from having parents of different sexes, numerous studies have shown that children of same-sex parents are happier and healthier than kids with different-sex parents. Additionally, a Cornell University review showed that 75 out of 79 studies “concluded that children of gay or lesbian parents fare no worse than other children.”

The House State Affairs Committee approved the legislation, clearing its way to a full public hearing in the near future. Even if the measure is approved by both chambers of the state legislature, it won’t create any new laws and won’t necessarily compel the U.S. Supreme Court to act, though it would result in the resolution being sent to the Supreme Court for consideration.

Last year, Republican state Rep. Heather Scott (R) introduced a similar measure. It passed the House in a 46-24 vote but didn’t recieve a Senate vote, effectively killing it. State Democrats at the time called the resolution a “sad distraction.”

Idaho voters approved a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in 2006; a federal judge declare it unconstitutional in 2014, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalized same-sex marriage in the state the following year.

Last October, Republican Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she thought the court’s same-sex marriage ruling would remain in place because it affects many other rights, including medical, financial, family, and other social rights.

Folks have worried about marriage equality since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. After that decision, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the same legal reasoning could also be used to overturn marriage equality. 

Anti-LGBTQ+ Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has also been outspoken about his hatred of the Obergefell decision, though he has claimed the precedent set by the court’s ruling is “entitled to respect.”

In another interview, former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the landmark opinion legalizing marriage equality nationwide, also cited reliance while explaining that he doesn’t think the decision is in any danger of being overturned.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.