Idaho Republican lawmakers request Supreme Court to reverse same-sex marriage

Idaho’s predominantly Republican state House has made a formal request for the Supreme Court to overturn a 2015 decision that established the right of same-sex couples to marry.

On Monday, the Iowa House approved a resolution with a 46-24 vote, expressing the legislature’s rejection of the landmark Obergefell v Hodges decision. The resolution urges the justices to “restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman.”

Although the measure doesn’t have legal power, it highlights how Donald Trump’s administration has encouraged right-wing opposition to LGBTQ+ rights to challenge Supreme Court decisions.

Fifteen House Republicans alongside all Idaho Democrats opposed the measure, which is now proceeding to a state senate committee for review.

“Extremist attacks have become de rigueur, and LGBTQ+ Americans are right to be concerned about their escalation,” said Sarah Warbelow, vice president for legal affairs at the Human Rights Campaign, to The Advocate.

Warbelow commented that this act by Idaho Republicans is merely an ineffective protest. “A majority of Americans of all political affiliations support marriage equality. Resolutions are not laws, and state legislatures lack the power to dismantle marriage equality.”

The ACLU of Idaho expressed deep disappointment and frustration over the measure, according to Rebecca De Leon, the communications director, speaking to ‘The Independent’.

“A measure expressing a ‘bigoted and unpopular view on same-sex marriage is an affront to queer people in this state, and is a grasp at power that is well beyond the scope of a state entity,” De Leon stated. “Idaho has many real, complex problems that the legislature should be addressing, not wasting time on toothless virtue-signaling.”

Proposed by GOP state Rep. Heather Scott and supported by anti-LGBTQ+ activists, the measure claims the Obergefell decision contradicts U.S.A. constitutional principles and “insists on restoring the issue of marriage and enforcement of all laws pertaining to marriage back to the several states and the people.”

In 2006, Idaho amended its state Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. However, nearly a decade later, the Supreme Court ruled that such laws violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection and due process guarantees.

The court's decision “confused marriage laws and constitutions across the country,” Scott remarked on the state House floor Monday.

Scott also stated, “This same Supreme Court used this same reasoning to decide on the right to privacy in Roe v Wade, justifying abortion, which was overturned 50 years later,” adding that the federal government lacks the authority to create rights out of thin air.

In his concurring opinion in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe and removed a constitutional right to abortion care, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested reevaluating major cases involving “substantive due process precedents,” including those regarding same-sex marriages, gay sex, and contraception.

Thomas wrote, “Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous’... we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.” He questioned if other constitutional provisions might guarantee the numerous rights born from substantive due process cases.

These cases include Griswold v Connecticut, which barred states from banning contraception; Lawrence v Texas, which invalidated laws prohibiting same-sex sexual activities; and Obergefell v Hodges, legalising same-sex marriage.

In their dissent on Dobbs, Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor argued that the cases Thomas referenced “are all part of the same constitutional fabric, protecting autonomous decision making over the most personal of life decisions.”

Their dissent continued, “So one of two things must be true. Either the majority does not really believe in its own reasoning. Or if it does, all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid-19th century are insecure. Either the mass of the majority’s opinion is hypocrisy, or additional constitutional rights are under threat. It is one or the other.”