Republicans in 9 States Push to Overturn Gay Marriage

metroweekly.com:

Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the court struck down all existing state-level same-sex marriage bans. Last month, the Idaho House of Representatives voted 46-24 to approve one such resolution, asking the nation’s highest court to “restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman.”While the resolution is non-binding and doesn’t require the Supreme Court to take action, Republican lawmakers see it as a “messaging” bill that expresses their extreme displeasure with same-sex marriage.Earlier this week, the North Dakota House of Representatives approved a nearly identical bill on a 52-40 vote.

Meanwhile, in Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas, lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to grant special privileges to heterosexual marriages by allowing only straight couples to enter so-called “covenant marriages.”Those bills don’t specifically mention same-sex marriage or Obergefell.

Instead, they are intended to encourage opposite-sex couples to remain together, imposing faith-based counseling requirements before couples can separate or divorce and demanding that couples pledge to “take all reasonable efforts” to preserve such unions.One Oklahoma lawmaker, State Sen.

David Bullard, has gone so far as to introduce a child tax credit that would only apply to married heterosexual couples with biological children conceived during the marriage.These efforts come at a time when conservatives see themselves politically on the rise following Donald Trump’s presidential victory.