General
North Dakota Senate Rejects Measure Asking Supreme Court to Revisit Gay Marriage
The resolution, which passed the North Dakota House, was part of a broader push by some conservatives to end the national right to same-sex marriage.
State senators in North Dakota voted down a measure on Thursday calling for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its decision that established a national right to same-sex marriage, an issue that has divided the Republicans who control that legislative chamber.
The vote came weeks after the state’s House of Representatives passed the resolution, and was part of a nationwide push by some conservatives to reopen a cultural battleground that many believed was settled.
The North Dakota legislation, like a similarly worded measure that passed the Idaho House of Representatives in January, would not have immediately changed the legality of same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Court established across the country in 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges. But the willingness of Republicans in some states to revisit the issue signaled a broader political shift at a time when the Trump administration and conservative lawmakers are also seeking to limit official recognition of transgender identity.
Legislation condemning the Obergefell decision was also introduced this year in Michigan, Montana and South Dakota, though none of those measures have advanced out of committees. In Idaho, where the House passed its resolution, the state’s Senate has not taken it up.
The debate in North Dakota hearkened back to the early 2000s, before the Supreme Court decision, when same-sex marriage was debated fiercely in the states, leading to bans in some places and laws allowing same-sex couples to wed in others.
State Representative Bill Tveit, a Republican who sponsored the North Dakota resolution, cited the Bible, state laws and legal opinions when he made his case. The North Dakota Catholic Conference was among the organizations that spoke in support of the resolution.
