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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   26704 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

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I don’t even see all of those states passing such an amendment. They might not ban same sex marriage again (though I could see it from one or two of them), but they’re definitely not all passing a bill in favor of SSM.

Which of those states do you think wouldn’t pass it? Gay marriage has over 70% support nationally and it seems to me there is no organized opposition to it. This is all a hypothetical exercise but I think it would pass fairly easily.

Gender equality before the law must have even higher support, and the Equal Rights Amendment has failed to be ratified for 100 years now because plenty of state legislators know that the signal something sends to their base can be very different from the plain text of a law.

Or because they understood it would lead to a host of things people don’t really want even if at a basic level they say “equality before the law.”

In Indiana, marriage is still on the books defined as between an man and a woman and does not recognize same sex marriages from other states, it's just currently superceded by Obergefell.

I think KS, IN, NE, TX, AK, and KY are extremely unlikely to pass any such amendment. And I don't think the states Biden won are guaranteed, either. I think instead you're mistake the opinion of the court with the opinion of the country.

Nationally support is over 70% for gay marriage. Obviously differs by state but the opinion of the country is clearly on the side of allowing gay marriage.

Who cares? We're not talking nationally, we're talking about 38 separate states. I don't care that there are millions of Californians who are in favor of gay marriage, I care whether the Wyoming state legislature would approve an amendment to the constitution.

That opinion, by the way, is completely downstream of the opinion of the court, wrongly decided.

There's a difference between supporting gay marriage and supporting a Constitutional amendment to explicitly allow it, though. There are a lot of meta-concerns in the latter around the Constitution that don't exist in the former. I'm not sure I'd bet a lot against such an amendment passing, even if there were some serious threat against gay marriage in some states, but I'd almost certainly bet against it.

Indiana’s questionable. SSM was forced on the state by court order shortly before Obergefell, it has no legal protections for LGBT people seeking housing or accommodations, and it has Republican supermajorities in both houses. Missouri’s similar, as it also lacks LGBT protections and has Republican supermajorities. Kansas and Nebraska would probably be more likely to vote for it, but they have some of the same factors.

Texas would shock me, given how much its Republican governor and legislature have been leaning into the culture war. I think Tennessee and Arkansas would also very likely refuse to hold a vote, since, according to this site, barely over half the population of each state supports SSM, and I’m guessing support is substantially lower among the Republican base. Heck, I could see both states outright banning SSM if given the opportunity. Kentucky has a bit more public support for SSM, but I could easily its legislature sitting on the issue as well.

One important thing to consider is that no state would even need to hold a vote on the issue. If the legislature just doesn’t discuss it, nothing happens. And in that case, no Republicans would need to worry about getting primaried for voting in favor of a constitutional amendment, and few if any legislators would be electorally punished for their lack of action. Inaction is the easiest path for any legislator or legislature to take.

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