Idaho Republican legislators hear testimony on same-sex marriage but don’t listen | Opinion

The Declaration of Independence is a wonderful document, an inspiring guide for the founding of our country.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Those words are so good, they’re paraphrased in the very first words of the Idaho Constitution: “All men are by nature free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property; pursuing happiness and securing safety.”

And that, really, is what’s at the heart of the debate over a new memorial in the Idaho Legislature seeking to bring back a ban on same-sex marriage.

It’s about whether the state government can deny certain inalienable rights to a segment of its citizenry.

Unfortunately, after a farce of a public hearing Wednesday, a Republican-dominated committee voted that the state government should be able to infringe on those rights by discriminating against certain people they deem (ostensibly based on certain religious doctrine) unworthy of marriage.

What this is not about is “federal overreach” or “state sovereignty,” as memorial sponsor Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, deceptively suggested. It’s about individual sovereignty and protection against government interference in the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The state government does not have carte blanche to pass a law that infringes on the rights of its citizens, just because something isn’t enumerated in the constitution.

That’s what the U.S. Supreme Court did in its Obergefell ruling: It recognized that state laws banning same-sex couples from marrying discriminated against them and violated their right to equal protection under the law.

Scott called the Supreme Court’s ruling “judicial policymaking”; we call it protection of inalienable rights.

Barring same-sex couples from marrying denied them myriad privileges that other married couples enjoy under the law: inheritance rights, insurance benefits, Social Security and retirement benefits, medical decision-making and visitation rights, certain tax benefits, judicial protections such as spousal privilege and parental rights.

By denying same-sex couples those legal privileges, states, like Idaho, were not providing equal protection under the law, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has done this multiple times in the past, a necessary insertion of itself when the government — whether that be a state, local or federal government — infringes on the constitutionally protected rights of individuals: segregated schools (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954), interracial marriage bans (Loving v. Virginia, 1967), interrogating suspects without informing them of their rights (Miranda v. Arizona, 1966), denying defendants the right to free legal counsel (Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963).

Perhaps what’s most infuriating about Wednesday’s committee hearing is that the 13 Republican members of the committee listened to nearly two hours of testimony on the bill and voted against the overwhelming majority of the people who testified.

At least 15 people spoke in opposition to the resolution during the public testimony portion of the meeting, all Idahoans, including a heterosexual cisgender man; a son of a lesbian couple; Idahoans in same-sex marriages; and clergy members.

Only three people testified in favor of the bill, all from special interest groups.

That included someone from the self-described Christian nationalist organization Idaho Family Policy Center, and someone from Mass Resistance, a Massachusetts-based anti-LGBTQ+ outfit whose representative admitted that the legislation came from his group and said gay people “are not born homosexual” and that “children need a mother and father.” Legislators listened to that guy instead of the actual Idahoan from Hailey who grew up with two mothers and testified against the resolution.

Rep. Todd Achilles, D-Boise, enumerated the six reasons he was opposed to the resolution:

• The resolution is less about states’ rights and more specifically about marriage equality.
• The committee is spending time on legislation drafted by a small Massachusetts organization that is “overtly anti-LGBTQ.”
• The language in the resolution is misleading and misrepresented.
• The resolution fails to acknowledge the Latta v. Otter case, where same-sex marriage was already legalized in Idaho prior to Obergefell.
• Passage of the resolution will have no legal effect and will just be “tossed in the trash.”
• The resolution declares that members of Idaho’s LGBTQ community are not worthy of the freedom to jointly own property and pursue happiness.

Without discussion or debate or even a modicum of an attempt at refuting Achilles’ well-reasoned arguments, the 13 Republicans on the committee voted against Achilles’ motion to hold the memorial in committee.

Then, again without discussion or debate, the 13 Republicans on the committee voted to send the memorial to the House floor with a “do-pass” recommendation.

It was a waste of two hours. The committee might as well have had a vote at the beginning of the hearing and adjourned.

They didn’t listen; they didn’t care; they didn’t expend any intellectual effort or make even a cursory attempt at explaining, reasoning or defending their positions.

For a party in a state that’s so focused on liberty, it’s sad and shameful that the supermajority Republican Legislature decides to use its political capital not on expanding the freedoms and liberties of its citizens, but on taking them away.

Statesman editorials are the opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members Greg Lanting, Terri Schorzman and Garry Wenske.