Bipartisan lawmakers across the country are trying to codify marriage equality
Story at a glance
- Utah state senator Derek Kitchen is opening a bill file to codify marriage equality in his state.
- He’s joined by New Jersey Assemblyman Don Guardian (R), and both lawmakers hope to push more states to join them.
- The effort is inspired by a leaked Supreme Court opinion on abortion rights that has many leaders worried marriage equality could also be overturned.
A state senator in Utah is hoping to rally together a bipartisan group of lawmakers to codify marriage equality in an effort to protect the LGBTQ community following a leaked Supreme Court opinion that has the court poised to overturn abortion rights.
Utah state Sen. Derek Kitchen (D) opened a bill file to codify marriage equality in his state and hopes to follow in the footsteps of New Jersey, where Gov. Phill Mury (D) signed legislation in January that ensures the right to same-sex marriage will continue to exist even if state and federal court precedents were to be overturned.
Kitchen hopes to achieve the same protections for same-sex couples in Utah. In a statement, he said the recent leak from the U.S. Supreme Court indicated the justices were poised to overturn the 1973 ruling of Roe v. Wade, which affirmed a women’s constitutional right to seek an abortion, and that “signals a majority of justices may undermine the right to privacy and other precedent deemed essential to arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, which made marriage equality the law of the land in 2015.”
In a 2015 decision for Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right to marry and applies to same-sex couples in the same way it does to opposite-sex couples.
America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.
Kitchen himself is gay and was part of a lawsuit that sued Utah for its laws prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying. In 2013, a judge ruled that Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.
New Jersey Assemblyman Don Guardian (R) is joining Kitchen’s efforts, saying in a joint statement that he’s working with state legislators from across the country to formulate legislation.
“We cannot turb back the clock and give unelected officials the opportunity to deny any American the right to marry the one they love.”
A report by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) that’s part of an ongoing series called “Equality Maps,” found 15 states and the District of Columbia do not currently have statutes or constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage—but only Connecticut, Nevada and New Jersey have taken legislative action to codify marriage equality.
However, at the same time there are 10 states that currently still have statues or constitutional amendments that prohibit same-sex marriage. Some could become enforceable if Obergefell were to be overturned.
Fears that the Supreme Court could overturn the right to marry for same-sex couples are growing, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also saying eliminating the nearly 50-year precedent on abortion rights set by Roe v. Wade would lay the foundation for Republicans, “to obliterate even more of our freedoms.”
Source: TEST FEED1
