- While dormant due to a 2015 US Supreme Court decision, Michigan still has a ban on same sex marriage enshrined in its constitution
- Michigan’s Democratic-led Senate on Thursday took testimony on a potential ballot proposal to remove that ban — permanently
- Doing so would require supermajority votes in the Legislature and voter approval of a statewide ballot proposal
LANSING — Senate Democrats are pushing to repeal Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban, which remains on the books despite a 2015 US Supreme Court ruling that legalized the marriages nationwide.
A resolution debated Thursday in the chamber’s Committee on Civil Rights, Judiciary, and Public Safety would amend the state Constitution to remove the ban.
But doing so would require two-thirds support in both chambers of the state Legislature, including the Republican-led House, and approval by Michigan voters on the statewide ballot.
The Supreme Court last fall rejected a request to revisit its 2015 decision on same-sex marriages, but some justices have signaled a willingness to do so, prompting the new push in Michigan.
“This resolution would keep the status quo exactly as it is, right now,” said State Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield. Moss is one of the handful of LGBTQ-identifying lawmakers actively serving in the Legislature.
In 2004, Michigan voters approved an amendment to the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage and civil partnerships. The ballot measure passed with nearly 60% of the vote, asserting that opposite-sex marriages were beneficial “for our society and for future generations of children.”
Senate Joint Resolution F would strip that wording from the Michigan Constitution entirely. A definition limiting marriage to one woman and one man would be replaced with gender-neutral language.
There were 13,875 married same-sex couples in Michigan as of the 2020 US Census, including 8,357 female couples and 5,518 male couples. Another 12,306 same-sex couples reportedly lived together but were not married.
Same-sex couples accounted for about 3% of Michigan marriages in 2023, the most recent year for which state data is available.
Advocates who fear the Supreme Court could reverse its marriage decision point to a 2022 opinion handed down in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned guaranteed nationwide access to abortion.
In that decision, Justice Clarence Thomas called for the court to “correct the error” in cases that used similar legal logic to uphold the right to contraception, same-sex sexual activity and same-sex marriage.
Last year, seven state House Republicans signed on to a request for the Supreme Court justices to revisit the legality of same-sex marriage.
“Marriage belongs to one man and one woman,” sponsoring Rep. John Schriver said in a press conference where he did not allow questions. “This is a biological necessity to preserve and grow our human race.”
The resolution did not advance or receive a hearing. At the time, House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, called it “very divisive” within the GOP caucus, adding: “A lot of Republicans disagree with Rep. Shriver.”
In Thursday’s hearing on whether to repeal the dormant same-sex marriage ban, no one spoke in opposition to the proposal. Lawmakers did not take a vote on the measure, and it remains in committee.
Among those who testified in support of the initiative: April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, a lesbian couple who sued then-Gov. Rick Snyder in 2012 as part of an effort to overturn Michigan’s ban on same-sex couples adopting children.
Their suit was later amended to challenge Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban. After an extensive legal battle, they appealed the case to the US Supreme Court, where it was consolidated along with three other cases, including Ohio’s Obergefell v. Hodges.
In testimony, DeBoer and Rowse said they feared the Supreme Court could reverse what had been a 5-4 decision in Obergefell, impacting not only their marriage, but their kids.
“We are now living in a time that we feel that this could all be taken away from us, that we can be legal strangers to each other — we could be legal strangers to our kids,” DeBoer said.
She later added: “We don’t want to go back to being second-class citizens.”
It’s the latest effort by Michigan Democrats to repeal dormant laws that could be resurrected by courts.
In 2023, the Legislature repealed a 1931 abortion ban even though Michigan voters had approved a measure adding abortion rights to the state Constitution the prior year.
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