Will Nevada voters decide to support same-sex marriage?
This coming November, Nevada will vote on whether to repeal a same-sex marriage ban within the state’s constitution. You’d be correct if you read that sentence and thought, “But isn’t gay marriage legal across the United States?” But, that fact hasn’t stopped conservative people from attempting to block gay people and gay marriages. The reason being, outdated state legislation.
While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage during the June 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case, 30 states still have gay marriage bans in their state constitutions. Legally, these bans are invalid. But, that doesn’t stop homophobic people from arguing these several state laws are against gay love.
“That just is a reminder that we can never rest on our laurels,” Andre Wade, the director of Silver State Equality, told the South Florida Gay News. “Regardless of what happens in the Supreme Court, there are always threats. We never know what’s going to happen.”
As Wade states, people throughout the country have attempted to undermine the Supreme Court ruling protecting same-sex marriage by citing state laws. For instance, Tennessee lawmakers attempted to reverse the SCOTUS ruling in 2019 by introducing a Natural Marriage Bill. Then earlier this year, a conservative group in Tennessee tried to say that the state’s constitution was being violated by clerks giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
According to NBC’s Las Vegas Affiliate, several Civil and human rights groups have released statements saying that though public sentiment has shifted in favor of gay marriage, public support for passing the repeal is a concern. Sarah Warbelow, the legal director of Human Rights Campaign, said that despite the bans being unenforceable, “they’re still an ugly scar.”
Source: South Florida Gay News, NBC Las Vegas,
