A Michigan Republican’s bill labels the Supreme Court’s marriage decision “illegitimate” and “unconstitutional.”
State Rep. Tom Hooker has introduced a resolution attacking same-sex marriage and the U.S. Supreme Court.Â
The bill, HCR0017, is already sponsored by 10 lawmakers, and a similar bill is being put forth in the state senate. The bill’s purpose is to “express the sense of the Michigan Legislature that the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges is illegitimate,” and “urge the Governor and all executive officers in the state of Michigan to uphold their oaths of office and not recognize or enforce the decision.”
It claims the Supreme Court effectively amended the U.S. Constitution and added “a new liberty: the fundamental right of ‘personal identity.'”Â
It also chastises the Supreme Court, calling the Obergefell decision “an act of will, not judgment,” and “a naked judicial claim to legislative…power” which “usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage.”
And it warns that the decision in Obergefell was an “inversion of the original meaning of liberty,” which “will likely cause collateral damage to other aspects of our constitutional order that protect liberty.”
MLive reports that Hooker “read his pending resolution out loud Wednesday during a ‘rally to protect religious people and stop persecution of religious people’ outside the Michigan Capitol.
“The Supreme Court is not a Legislature,” Hooker said. “Courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgement of legislative bodies or elected and passed laws.”
The rally, organized by a Christian non-profit called Salt & Light Global, drew a couple hundred people to Lansing.
The resolution in itself has no specific power and would not change marriage laws, but it sends a chilling and damaging message to every LGBT person, every family headed by a same-sex couple – including their children.
This is not Rep. Hooker’s first attack on social issues. In September, the GOP State Representative submitted a bill that would ban Planned Parenthood from teaching sex-ed classes in public schools because, he claimed, it gives Planned Parenthood “a perverse incentive” to teach sex-education which, he believes, will lead to more sex and thus more abortions.
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Image via Michigan House
Hat tip: Right Wing Watch