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CV NEWS FEED // The Idaho House of Representatives passed a joint memorial Jan. 27 that calls for the United States Supreme Court to overturn the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex “marriage.”
The message also urges the Court to “restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman.”
The Idaho House State Affairs Committee advanced the House Joint Memorial 1, sponsored by Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, last week in a 15-2 vote, according to a Jan. 22 report from the Idaho Capital Sun.
“We’re sending this clear message from Idaho,” Scott told the Committee last week regarding the memorial. “We don’t want our laws and our constitution trampled on, and it should be our decision what we want to do in a state.”
The House passed the joint memorial 46-24, sending it to the state Senate for consideration. All House Democrats, along with 15 Republications, voted against it, according to a Jan. 27 article in the Sun.
A joint memorial is a means for the Legislature to ask federal officials, including the Supreme Court, to consider the message or petition contained within it. The Sun noted that the memorial does not have “the force and effect of law,” but communicates the Idaho House’s rejection of the Supreme Court decision in the 2015 case.
According to the Sun, Idaho voters passed an amendment to the state constitution in 2006 that states: “A marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” In 2014, a federal judge ruled that this amendment was “unconstitutional.”
Julia Stronks, a professor of political science at the Washington-based Whitworth University, told outlet FaVS News in a Jan. 28 article that the joint memorial sends a message to other states about what traction there is to challenge the 2015 Supreme Court ruling.
“This is really a symbol and a statement to other states that there is a movement underfoot to get someone to bring an actual case to the Supreme Court to contest Obergefell,” Stronks told FaVS. “If the court did overturn Obergefell and leave this issue to the states, I think we would see about a third of states follow what seems to be developing in Idaho.”
