| 3.23.22

Should Same-Sex Marriage Cases be Kept out of Federal Courts? (S. 1080)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is S. 1080?

(Updated June 19, 2021)

This bill seeks to promote state rights, religious freedom, and uphold heterosexual unions as traditional marriage. It would do so by limiting the ability of Federal justices to determine the legality of same sex marriage.

Under this bill, no court put into place by federal law would be able to define marriage as between a man and a woman or as not just between a man and a woman. They also wouldn’t be able to compel a state to recognize or not recognize same sex marriage.

Argument in favor

This bill would protect state decisions on same-sex marriage from federal court meddling. It’s only fair: the reason we have state governments is so that people in a region can make decisions for themselves.

Argument opposed

Part of the federal government's job is to intervene when states are screwing up or, worse, being bigots. This bill would allow states to legally discriminate against same-sex couples by preventing federal courts from challenging local laws.

Impact

The LGBTQ community, couples who want to get married, state governments, federal judges, marriage equality and heterosexual marriage advocates.

Cost of S. 1080

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In Depth:

The actual text of this bill as of May 1, 2015 hasn’t been sent to Congress. Sponsoring Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has however, issued the full text of the bill in a press release. It’s kinda weird that he has the text, but hasn’t put the framing language around the bill and sent it in. What’s he so busy with? Running for president or something? Or is it just that he’s writing up an almost identical resolution?

Of Note:

While this bill would make it so that no court could decide the legality of same-sex marriage, it wouldn’t ban it outright. People could still vote to legalize it, as could state legislatures.

But here’s the thing: without court-ordered gay marriage, the national picture starts looking a lot different. Out of the 37 states where same-sex marriage is legal, 26 of those states legalized gay marriage after the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on gay marriage in 2013. Eight approved it via legislature, and another three by popular vote.

And while this bill certainly touches states’ rights issues — it would be a mistake to say that it’s more about those than it is about gay marriage. This bill was sponsored by Sen. Cruz — a man who is very vocal about his disapproval of gay marriage. He says so in his release for the bill: “[f]or millennia, the union of a man and a woman has been the fundamental building block of society.”