LANSING, Mich. — History was made down in Washington D.C. Thursday after Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act, but it’s in our own high court that LGBTQ+ Michiganders will have to once again fight for their rights despite the landmark legislation coming out of D.C.
“Well, one question would be what does the court do with existing marriages," asked Christine Yared, an LGBTQ+ lawyer in Grand Rapids.
That’s the question on a lot of minds, after the fall of Roe v. Wade left some doubts about other Supreme Court cases.
“If Obergefell is overturned, Michigan reverts back to being a state that prohibits same sex couples from getting married. And what this would look like is total chaos," she said.
Obergefell is the landmark 2015 Supreme Court case that made marriage equality the law of the land and allowed same sex couples to get married here in the Mitten. But lawmakers advocating on the issue say, despite that case and the Respect For Marriage Act, there's still work to do.
“We still have language right now in our [state] Constitution as passed in a ballot proposal in 2004 that bans not only marriage equality but even civil unions for same sex couples," said state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is also the Michigan Senate's first openly gay member.
It’s on Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s mind as well.
“If and likely when Obergefell is overturned, clerks in all 83 counties in Michigan will have to turn same-sex couples away when applying for a marriage license," she said in a tweet at the end of November. "People on their 12th marriage or who were convicted of killing their last spouse can marry in MI. But not gay people.”
But Moss says legislators are aware and working on finding a change, which would likely have to be a change to the Constitution made by the voters.
“Last year, we saw both of those avenues that put a an amendment to the Constitution on the ballot. We could do it if we have three-fourths vote in each chamber," Moss said. "I think that's going to be a heavy lift.”
Yared says recognizing same sex marriage is about more than a ring and a piece of paper.
“I would start with just the idea of how much it means emotionally," she says, and to turn back now would be deeply damaging. "That idea that all of a sudden now we're going to revert back to the idea that some people aren't good enough and that their marriage isn't good enough, their love isn't good enough.”
There are a lot of parts at play here, and FOX 47 will keep an eye on these issues as they develop.
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