The state Senate civil rights committee held a hearing Thursday on a measure to strip from the Michigan Constitution the long-dormant language of a ban on same-sex marriage.
The amendment adding the language was approved by voters in 2004, but has been inoperative since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down same-sex marriage bans in 2015. It remains in the Michigan Constitution because it can only be removed via a ballot question.
April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse are the Michigan couple who brought one of the marriage equality cases to the U-S Supreme Court. DeBoer told the committee it is time that language was removed.
“We don’t want to go back to being second-class citizens,” said DeBoer. “We don’t want other people to feel like their second-class citizens. Our marriage in the past 10 years has not affected anybody but us. It has done no harm to anybody.”
Michigan Senator Jeremy Moss (D-Bloomfield Township) sponsored the resolution. He said same-sex marriage in Michigan or around the country is no longer a novelty and the constitution should reflect that this is a settled question.
“These marriages have now been solidified for 10 years and they contribute to neighborhood stability, school stability, family stability,” he said.
Moss' resolution before the Senate Civil Rights, Judiciary and Public Safety Committee would put a question on the ballot because it would have to be approved by voters.
Jay Kaplan, a staff attorney the ACLU of Michigan’s LTBTQ+ Project, said there have been signals that some U.S. Supreme Court justices are open to revisiting that decision.
“And should there come a time when the U.S. Supreme Court reverses itself on the marriage equality decision, Michigan needs to be prepared for that,” Kaplan said.
The committee did not act on the resolution in this meeting. No opponents spoke, but it would take super-majority votes in the Senate and the House to send the question to the ballot, which would be a heavy lift in a divided Legislature.
