Idaho senator says marriage license bill isn’t about gay marriage. Yeah, right | Opinion – AOL
Idaho Sen. Scott Herndon, R-Sagle, has been on a tear in the opening weeks of the legislative session, coming out with pointless bills that address imaginary problems but hit hot-button issues for Idaho’s right-wing contingent: guns, abortion, voting and transgender rights.
His latest is a proposal to eliminate marriage licenses.
Senate Bill 1025 would eliminate the requirement for a state marriage license and replace it with the recording of a marriage certificate with the county recorder.
In essence, it gets the state out of the marriage business.
Herndon tried to assure the Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee that it has nothing to do with gay marriage when he introduced the bill on Jan. 25.
“I will just tell the committee right away that we’re not changing anything about the qualifications of who marries in the state of Idaho in this legislation,” Herndon told the committee. “And this legislation actually has no political motivation.”
Sen. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, asked him more directly.
“I am concerned to make sure that everybody can still get married that’s legally allowed to, in particular people who are gay,” she said. “So I need to hear that.”
Herndon went into a long-winded explanation that his bill wouldn’t change the qualifications for who could marry and that Idaho law would still rely upon judicial interpretations of qualifications for marriage.
This was the second time Herndon’s bill showed up on a committee agenda, and the first iteration of it clearly showed that it would indeed change qualifications of who marries in the state of Idaho.
“This legislation eliminates the marriage license,” the agenda item read. “Marriage in Idaho will consist of a man and a woman meeting legal qualifications, a marriage ceremony or solemnization and recording of a marriage certificate by the person performing the solemnization.”
That item was removed from the agenda and then showed up on the Judiciary and Rules agenda a couple of days later with no mention of marriage being between a man and a woman.
But that was obviously Herndon’s original intent.
If it’s not about gay marriage, what’s the purpose? What’s Herndon trying to do here?
Herndon said that, as a minister, in 2017 he married a couple who said they didn’t like the idea of the state “granting permission” for a marriage.
Seems like an awfully big change to state law just because of a complaint five years ago from an anti-government couple from North Idaho who said they don’t like the state government.
Given Herndon’s short but prolific track record, we already know he wants to legislate based on his interpretation of religion.
When talking last year to a talk radio host about abortion, he encouraged listeners to vote for anti-abortion legislators “so that we can change this equation in the state of Idaho and finally establish justice in our land and finally be in a position to receive the blessing of God.”
Perhaps Herndon similarly seeks to ban gay marriage to receive the blessing of God.
In a social media video before his first iteration of the bill was removed from the agenda, Herndon said his proposal would direct officiants to issue marriage “certificates” following a ceremony between “two qualified people, a man and a woman.”
Herndon knows that he now has a friend in the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, Raul Labrador, who has made it clear that he intends to be an activist attorney general driven by right-wing politics.
It’s not inconceivable that Herndon’s bill could set up Idaho as some sort of test case for gay marriage.
Remember, too, that Idaho still has a constitutional amendment, approved by voters in 2006, declaring marriage to be between a man and a woman only. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled gay marriage to be a fundamental right, Idaho never removed that constitutional amendment. It’s still on the books.
Who knows what Herndon’s motivations are, but for all the reasons above, don’t be surprised if something more nefarious is in the works.