Republican Senator Ted Cruz has
reintroduced a bill which seeks to prohibit the federal government
from recognizing the marriages of gay couples who live in states
where such unions are not legal, including Cruz's home state of
Texas.
Cruz's State Marriage Defense Act
includes 11 GOP co-sponsors. A House version being championed by
Texas rep. Randy Weber has 22.
“Even though the Supreme Court made
clear in United States v.
Windsor that the federal government should defer to state
'choices about who may be married,' the Obama administration has
disregarded state marriage laws enacted by democratically-elected
legislatures to uphold traditional marriage,” Cruz, a possible 2016
presidential candidate, said in a statement.
“I support traditional marriage and
we should reject attempts by the Obama administration to force
same-sex marriage on all 50 states. The State Marriage Defense Act
helps safeguard the ability of states to preserve traditional
marriage for their citizens,” he added.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, said in a statement that the
bill aims to “make our nation's already-unfair patchwork of laws
even more burdensome for same-sex couples, and undermine the promise
of equal treatment in the historic Windsor decision.”
If approved, the bill would only affect
the 13 remaining states with restrictive marriage bans.