The Ongoing Betrayal of Red States on Overturning Obergefell

American Thinker ^ | 18 May, 2026 | Arthur Schaper

[MtnClimber]

In state after state, Republican legislators display both cowardice and short-sightedness when it comes to pushing back against Obergefell.

For the last two years, MassResistance has aggressively campaigned to reverse same-sex “marriage” by promoting nonbinding state legislative resolutions in several state legislatures, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. We have consistently maintained that Obergefell is an illegitimate judicial overreach that contradicts the Constitution’s original understanding, natural law, biological reality, and the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Our model resolution frames Obergefell as fundamentally flawed, based on the most unfounded legal reasoning. The majority decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, relied on the judicial fiction of substantive due process, which unleashed a host of terrible Supreme Court precedents. From there, Kennedy argued that there is a right to same-sex marriage, even though marriage is not defined in the Constitution nor rooted in our nation’s history and traditions.

We drew most of our resolution’s legal arguments from the dissenting Justices (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito), who argued that Obergefell undermined democratic processes, imposed an unjustified moral vision on the country, and ignored federalism.

Most importantly, however, redefining marriage caused great harm to the country, as MassResistance predicted. Same-sex “marriage” has unleashed an accelerated decline in marriage rates overall, challenges to religious liberty (bakers, photographers, adoption agencies), the spread of LGBT ideology in schools and public institutions, and harm to public health and public order. Our resolutions serve as a first step and signal to a post-Dobbs Supreme Court that states retain interest in this domain, much as Dobbs (2022) returned abortion to the states by correcting judicial overreach.

Despite successes in deeply conservative chambers—such as the Idaho House passing the resolution in both 2025 and 2026

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TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: leftism

[MtnClimber]

These politicians are certainly not biologists.

[rephope]

The Respect for Marriage Act passed by Democrats and signed into law by Biden, defines that marriage law is determined by the states even though all types of marriage would be recognized in federal law. So, if some state that has in their law or state constitution that marriage is one man and one woman, a state attorney general or governor or other administrative official can stop issuing marriage licenses to any other type of couple. That will trigger lawsuits to bring it back to SCOTUS to be overturned.

[Alberta's Child]

Personally, I think most of these initiatives to overturn Obergefell are going about it the wrong way.

Use the lesson from the Dobbs decision as a guide here. Don’t get federal courts involved in these arguments over moral and legal questions that can’t feasibly be resolved in courtrooms. Instead, push to have the federal courts recognize the supremacy of state laws by getting the federal government out of these matters entirely.

In the federal courts, the issue shouldn’t be that “marriage is between one man and one woman.”

Instead, the argument should be that the word “marriage” doesn’t appear anywhere in the U.S. Constitution — which means it is entirely a matter of state law.

This means the “marriage protection” movement should be willing to pursue a two-pronged approach (and their unwillingness to accept #2 means they are doomed to lose the argument):

1. Marriage is defined under state law.

2. Marriage can have no role whatsoever in federal law. That means any provision of federal laws or regulations that relates to “couples” must be struck from the books. That means no joint filing of tax returns for “married” people, not special circumstances for spouses under estate tax and inheritance laws, no special treatment of “spouses” in military housing, etc.

[cuz1961]

I long for the return to the days when “academics” taught gender was a grammatical term , not a biological term.

Talk about “ willfully ignorant “

[T Ruth]

bttt

[libertylover]

In his comments when Roe was overturned, Justice Clarence Thomas stated that Obergefell should be overturned as well. But a case has to come before the Court first.

[libertylover]

Interesting comment. Point #2 would take some time to absorb.

[Lurker]

“Instead, push to have the federal courts recognize the supremacy of state laws by getting the federal government out of these matters entirely.”

I warned about this when the DOMA was being argued.

L

[TBP]

Obergefell is constitutionally/ deficient for a few different reasons:

The idea that "sex"in the Civil Rights Act (which may itself have provisions that violate the Constitution) was intended to mean "sexual orientation" or "gender" is completely unsupported by the meaning of he words, the legislative history, or the contemporaneous debate.

Under the Constitution, marriage is a state matter, not a Federal one, and the Court could have achieved the same end without violating that constitutional principle by invoking the "full faith and credit" clause.

[Jacquerie]

Through a referendum, the people of CA initially passed a law declaring marriage consisted of the union of a man and woman.

Courts killed it.

Then, again through a referendum, the people of CA passed a constitutional amendment declaring marriage consisted of the union of a man and woman.

Lower courts killed the amendment as well.

Scotus 5-4.

Anthony Kennedy, after his retirement said in IIRC an NPR interview that he FELT the children with same sex “parents” should have the comfort of knowing they were married.

P!ss on leftist judges.

[fwdude]

The cartoon at the article is only too accurate and humorous:

[fwdude]

The only real solution to this horror is a marriage amendment to the Constitution, such as we were promised by numerous politicians in the late 90s and early 2000's in the event that courts got "out of hand." This would solve multiple problems instantly, if passed.

No state could credibly recognize same-sex mirage if the federal government wouldn't.

It would instantly reactivate the 25+ state marriage amendments still on the books.

It would serve as an impetus to also reverse Lawrence, the case which legalized homosexual sodomy nationwide and was the impetus to push every other homosexual agenda item into public policy.

It would put a major damper on the practice of homosexual adoptions.