Republican lawmakers have asked the Supreme Court to overturn same-sex marriage.
Oklahoma Republican lawmakers Senator Dusty Deevers and Representative Jim Olsen, both Republicans, have filed a resolution calling for the Supreme Court to revisit the 2015 ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges and allow matters surrounding same-sex marriage to be determined by states.
According to the resolution, the decision “conflicts with the original public meaning of the United States Constitution, the principles upon which the United States is established, and the deeply rooted history and tradition of the United States regarding the nature of marriage and state power.”
“Liberty is and has long been understood, from Blackstone to the Framers to America’s history and tradition until 2015, as individual freedom from unwarranted governmental intrusion, not a right to a particular governmental entitlement as falsely asserted in Obergefell,” the resolution adds, going on to state that Obergefell “asserts that governmental licensing of same-sex marriage is necessary to confer human dignity, contrary to Justice Clarence Thomas’ observation that, first, ‘the Constitution contains no “dignity” Clause,’ and second, ‘even if it did, the government would be incapable of bestowing dignity.’”
The resolution argues that the ruling was “illegitimate” because two of the Justices in the majority ruling had officiated same-sex weddings, but did not recuse themselves.
Iowa State Senator Sandy Salmon (R) has also formed a resolution on same-sex marriage to be distributed to the Supreme Court. “Since court rulings are not laws and only legislatures selected by the people may pass laws, Obergefell is an illegitimate overreach,” the resolution states.
Similar efforts to overturn Obergefell have been introduced in Michigan, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
