A group of six SC lawmakers are looking to define same-sex marriages as 'parody marriages'
Monday, February 19th 2018, 10:00 am EST
By Jeremy Turnage, Digital Content Manager

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - A group of six Republican lawmakers are looking to redefine marriage even after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld same-sex marriage in a landmark June 2015 ruling.

The "Marriage and Constitution Restoration Act" aims to refer to any marriage not between a man and a woman as "parody marriage." The bill says those marriages "fail to check out the human design."

The bill goes further and defines marriage as only a "union between a man and a woman."

Reps Josiah Magnuson, Bill Chumley, Steven Long, Mike Burns, John McCravy, and Rick Martin filed the bill in mid-February. All six lawmakers are running for re-election in the 2018 general election.

The Supreme Court made all bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional following a 5-4 ruling in the Obergefell v. Hodges case.

Justice Anthony Kennedy issued the opinion of the court in that case.

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family," Kennedy wrote. "In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

The South Carolina bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.