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Montana's effort to reject marriage equality isn't moving forward ... for now

Erin Reed Zooey Zephyr GLAAD Media Awards
Nina Westervelt/Variety via Getty Images

Erin Reed and Zooey Zephyr at the 34th Annual GLAAD Media Awards held at the New York Hilton Midtown on May 13, 2023, in New York City.

Montana legislators tabled a resolution against marriage equality with the help of Republicans.


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Montana legislators have tabled a resolution seeking to delegitimize marriage equality, temporarily preventing it from moving forward.

The state Senate Judiciary Committee voted Monday to table a resolution declaring that the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 ruling establishing marriage equality, Obergefell v. Hodges, is “at odds with the Constitution of the United States and the principles on which the United States was established.”

Senate Joint Resolution 15 was introduced by Republican state Sen. Rob Phalen. Republican Sen. Sue Vinton joined Democrats in opposing it, and the committee ultimately voted 6-2 to table it.

Dozens of people attended the meeting to speak against the resolution. Democratic state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who is transgender, rebuked it by talking about her wedding to independent journalist Erin Reed.

“She started reading her vows, that very sacred moment where someone who loves you dearly makes a promise in all the ways that they will love you for the rest of your life. That is the most special moment in my life I’ve had so far,” Zephyr said, via the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. “And when the ‘I do’s’ happened and we kissed, my 9-year old stepson said that moment was the happiest he ever was, because that was the moment I became his stepmom for real.”

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When the conservative Supreme Court majority created by Donald Trump overturned the national right to abortion in 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion at the time that the court should also revisit and overrule decisions that prevent state restrictions on contraception, marriage equality, sodomy, and other private consensual sex acts, calling the rulings "demonstrably erroneous."

Voters in Montana did approve a constitutional amendment prohibiting marriages between same-sex couples in 2004, which was struck down by a federal court in 2014 and further nullified by the 2015 Supreme Court ruling. If the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell, marriage equality would still be protected nationally by the Respect for Marriage Act, which passed in 2022 and was signed by President Joe Biden that December.

Montana was one out of nine states that have recently introduced resolutions trying to challenge marriage equality, including Idaho, where the House of Representatives approved such a measure. Northwestern LGBTQ+ advocacy group Pride Foundation CEO Katie Carter previously told The Advocate that "the resolution, while non-binding, amounts to an amplified cultural attack against our community — and a foreshadowing of what’s to come for LGBTQ+ people across the United States."

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