Texas, North Carolina Launch Attempts to Defy U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Gay Marriage
In two states in America, lawmakers are moving to defy the Supreme Court's June 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
In Texas, the nation's largest conservative state, legislators voted on Tuesday to let county judges and other elected officials abstain from issuing marriage licenses if they have personal religious objections, the Associated Press reported.
The bill is expected to be tackled at the Texas House after winning preliminary approval in the Senate, 21-10.
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It's only now that the Texas Legislature is responding to the Supreme Court's gay marriage decision in June 2015 because it only meets once every two years.
Sen. Brian Birdwell (R), the sponsor of the bill, called on fellow lawmakers to approve the bill. "If we don't do this, we are discriminating against people of faith," he said, referring to clerks, judges, justices of the peace and other elected officials empowered to issue marriage licenses in Texas' 254 counties.
Another state that is trying to resist the legalization of gay marriage is North Carolina.
On Tuesday, four N.C. House Republicans filed a bill that would direct state government to defy the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage and restore the state constitution's ban on such union, The News & Observer reported.
House Bill 780, titled "Uphold Historical Marriage Act," argues that it's "clear that laws concerning marriage are for each state to establish and maintain severally and independently."
Quoting the Bible, the bill says the Supreme Court decision in 2015 "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."
The bill also says that same-sex marriages performed in other states wouldn't be recognized in North Carolina.
Attempts by other states to defy the Supreme Court ruling have failed. A few months after the ruling, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore ordered judges in the state not to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Moore's decision was overturned by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary and he was suspended from office on Sept. 30 last year, reports said.
The court found Moore guilty of all six charges of violation of the canons of judicial ethics, al.com reported.
Moore filed an appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, saying in a statement that the Alabama court's decision "clearly reflects the corrupt nature of our political and legal system at the highest level."
He said he was the victim of "a politically motivated effort by radical homosexual and transgender groups to remove me as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court because of outspoken opposition to their immoral agenda."
