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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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A Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma has filed a resolution calling for the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 decision that established the nationwide right to same-sex marriage.
Senate Concurrent Resolution 8, authored and sponsored by state Senator Dusty Deevers, was introduced on May 1.
Newsweek has contacted Deevers for comment via email.
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Why It Matters
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional right to an abortion, there have been concerns that the nation's highest court could also do away with other rights, including the right to same-sex marriage.
Conservative lawmakers in several states, including Idaho and Montana, have introduced various measures encouraging the court to overturn Obergefell. Two conservative Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who both dissented in Obergefell, have suggested that the decision should be reconsidered.
What To Know
The resolution states the decision in Obergefell "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 powers."
It also notes that Oklahomans in 2004 had approved State Question 711, voting to "recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman, prohibit marriage benefits for unmarried individuals, invalidate same-sex marriages from other states." However, a federal judge in 2014 struck down the ban, ruling it violated the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause, and the Supreme Court declined to review the case.
The resolution also contends the Obergefell decision was "illegitimate because two of the Justices in the majority ruling, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, had previously officiated same-sex weddings... and therefore should have recused themselves."
It says the Oklahoma Legislature "hereby urges the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn its unconstitutional holding in Obergefell v. Hodges and recognize that marriage is between one man and one woman, or to return full authority over marriage policy to the several states."
What People Are Saying
Deevers wrote on X on Monday: "Overturn Obergefell! In Obergefell, SCOTUS sowed the seeds of the supposed interchangeability of the sexes and we have reaped radical gender ideology ever since. It is time for SCOTUS to cease its war against nature and nature's God. It is time to overturn Obergefell."
Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt, a Democrat, told The Oklahoman: "All Oklahomans have the right to love whom they love in peace without state interference. It is a waste of legislative time to attempt to roll back these rights that so many fought long and hard for."
Kate Shaw, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, previously told Newsweek that resolutions from lawmakers seem "purely symbolic."
"But if a state sought to go further—to pass or enforce a law that limited marriage to opposite-sex couples, in clear violation of Obergefell—a challenge to that law could quickly make its way to the Supreme Court," she said.
What's Next
Republicans control both chambers of the Oklahoma Legislature.
If the resolution is approved by lawmakers, copies will be distributed to the Supreme Court, the president of the U.S. Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, members of the Oklahoma congressional delegation and the Oklahoma attorney general, according to the text of the resolution.
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