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Idaho effort against same-sex marriage heads to Senate after Republican divide emerges

By Ian Max Stevenson Idaho Statesman

A controversial Idaho resolution that asks the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its decade-old decision to allow same-sex marriages nationwide passed the state House over the objections of Democrats and some Republicans.

The resolution, House Joint Memorial 1, passed by a 46-24 vote, with 15 Republicans joining the chamber’s nine Democrats in opposition. It will next be sent to a Senate committee for consideration.

Though memorials are effectively formal letters from the Legislature and do not carry the force of law, the resolution has stirred strong feelings among lawmakers – and members of the public.

Pushed by an anti-LGBTQ+ group called MassResistance, the resolution is sponsored by Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, who argued her proposal was about state sovereignty. The resolution asks the nation’s highest court to “restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman.”

Last week, several dozen demonstrators walked out of a public hearing in protest of the resolution.

“(The Supreme Court) claimed to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, and it confused marriage laws and constitutions across the country,” Scott said on the House floor Monday. “This same Supreme Court used this same reasoning to make its decision for a right to privacy on Roe v. Wade, and that’s how they justified abortion, which, as we know, was overturned 50 years later.

“The federal government does not have the authority to just create rights out of thin air,” she added.

Asked by an Idaho Statesman reporter last week whether she opposes same-sex marriage, Scott replied: “That’s not the question.” She declined to comment further, including about whether she worked with MassResistance on the bill.

Republican Gov. Brad Little’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As a joint memorial, the resolution, if passed, would not require his signature.

The resolution is one of several bills and proposals this year that touch on hot-button political issues. Others would allow local judges to deport immigrants who lack proper documentation, make a firing squad the primary execution method, and impose strict minimum fines for marijuana possession, where cannabis already is illegal in all forms.

Christian conservatives have lined up to support the effort against same-sex marriage, and indicated that same-sex unions are immoral as laid out in the Bible.

“We are a nation that is built on morals and laws, founding documents that mean things,” Rep. Clint Hostetler, R-Twin Falls, said on the floor Tuesday, adding that the state should “pull ourselves back” to earlier standards.

“Marriage is either a lifelong union of a man and a woman, creating a family into which children are born, raised, and cherished, or it’s simply a disposable piece of paper that carries legal connotations,” Brian Almon, a far-right Idaho blogger, recently wrote.

One-quarter of Republican caucus joins Democrats to oppose

Democrats decried the marriage resolution, noting its anti-LGBTQ+ stance could harm gay Idahoans. The 15 Republicans who joined them in opposition make up a quarter of the House GOP caucus.

Rep. Todd Achilles, D-Boise, said the change would prevent same-sex couples from keeping the rights and benefits associated with marriage.

“There are 1,300 rights and benefits across our body of laws that flow to married couples, and denying those rights and benefits because you disagree with that union, I think, is the very definition of government overreach,” he said.

In 2014, before the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, an Idaho judge ruled the state’s ban on same-sex unions violated the U.S. Constitution’s due process clause.

House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, an attorney, said that arguments over state sovereignty reflect similar ones made to oppose interracial marriage, racial desegregation in schools and desegregation of public businesses – all of which were eventually protected federally.

One of Rubel’s sons is gay, she said on the House floor. The push to advance the resolution against same-sex marriage makes LGBTQ+ residents feel “like their Legislature doesn’t want them here and doesn’t want them to be able to live the full rights that everyone else can,” she said.