Four North Carolina Republicans filed a bill on Tuesday that would direct the state to defy a Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. It would reinstate the state’s constitutional amendment, limiting marriage to between one man and one woman, approved in 2012 by voter referendum.
Same-sex marriages conducted in other states would also not be recognized in North Carolina.
House Bill 780, titled the “Uphold Historical Marriages Act,” would make the 2015 Supreme Court ruling “null and void in the State of North Carolina.”
The bill quotes the Bible in saying the ruling “exceeds the authority of the court relative to the decree of Almighty God that ‘a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24, ESV) and abrogates the clear meaning and understanding of marriage in all societies throughout prior history.”
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Not The Onion, just North Carolina.
The bill also claims “the United States Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional bounds 16 when it struck down Section 6 of Article XIV of the North Carolina Constitution in its 17 Obergefell v. Hodges decision of 2015,” stating “the enumerated powers of the federal government, as outlined in the 8 United States Constitution, do not include the authority or power to establish laws concerning 9 marriage.”
The bill is sponsored by Republican Reps. Larry Pittman of Concord, Michael Speciale of New Bern, Carl Ford of Rowan County and Mike Clampitt of Bryson City, whom Raleigh’s News & Observer notes often file far-right pieces of legislation that fail to gain traction.
Gov. Roy Cooper attacked the bill on Twitter.
“This bill is wrong,” he tweeted. “We need more LGBT protections, not fewer.”
This bill is wrong. We need more LGBT protections, not fewer. – RC https://t.co/o5niNU9Ly7
— Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) April 11, 2017
“Pittman and Speciale are embarrassments to the State of North Carolina and should be shunned from public life,” Wake County Commissioner John Burns tweeted.
https://twitter.com/johnburnsnc/status/851917163921330176
