North Dakota Senate Keeps Marriage Equality After 16-31 Vote

After only 10 minutes of debate, the resolution to overturn marriage equality failed to pass the North Dakota state Senate.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, some republican lawmakers, along with Donald Trump, wanted to pull other Supreme Court decisions related to a person’s personal freedoms into question. Justice Clarence Thomas called protections for marriage equality “demonstrably erroneous.” North Dakota, along with eight other states, introduced a resolution to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, and it passed the House of Representatives in February.

When the resolution reached the Senate, it failed in a 16-31 vote after only 10 minutes of debate. Josh Boschee, a democratic senator, opposed the resolution, saying, “The gay and lesbian North Dakotans who did not ask to be the subject of this conversation” are the ones being put in the most difficult position by this debate. Even republican representative Matt Ruby, who voted for the resolution to pass through the House, said that he regrets voting for it and meant to vote yes for something else. He believes his vote sent the message, “that your marriage isn’t valid, and you’re not welcome,” to LGBTQ+ North Dakotans, and he claims he supports same-gender marriage.

There is a common occurrence in which conservative lawmakers and their supporters will do or propose something extremely hateful and justify it by feigning a righteous motivation. Trump is doing his best to erase LGBTQ+ people and their rights, and his supporters are trying to remove their stories from history and call it “defending women.” The VA Secretary Doug Collins claimed to always be welcoming to trans veterans but discontinued gender-affirming care for them. Republican Representative Bill Tveit said that he introduced the resolution to overturn marriage equality because the Supreme Court ruling, “went totally against the Tenth Amendment, went totally against the North Dakota Constitution and North Dakota Century Code.” Tveit claimed that he was fulfilling his oath to uphold the Constitution.

It is important to know and remember the names of the lawmakers who make these false claims of righteousness, especially when election season comes around. Ballotpedia is a great resource that has information about major and local elections for the entire U.S. and provide a lot of simplifications for the inaccessible language many ballot measures are written in. Participate in all of the elections you can so that we can see more wins like this one, when the people chosen to represent us act in ways that reflect the people they’re meant to represent.