SC Bill: Gay Marriage As Bad As Forced Sterilization, Japanese Internment

An anti-gay marriage bill filed in South Carolina last month compares the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision that declared marriage a constitutional right for same-sex couples to previous Supreme Court decisions that okayed forced sterilization and Japanese internment.

“[T]he United States Supreme Court is not infallible and has issued lawless decisions which are repulsive to the Constitution and natural law, including Buck v. Bell, Korematsu v. United States, Roe v. Wade, and, most recently, Obergefell v. Hodges,” reads the legislation. It is sponsored by state Reps. William Chumley (R), James Burns (R), Richard Yow (R), and Lonnie Hosey (D).

Buck v. Bell was a 1927 Supreme Court decision upholding a Virginia law that permitted forced sterilization in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” In 1944’s Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court said the government’s policy of interning Japanese-Americans was constitutional.

The South Carolina bill, prefiled Dec. 3, would attempt to nullify the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision.

“A court decision purporting to strike down natural marriage, including Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S.Ct. 2584 (2015), is unauthoritative, void, and of no effect,” it says.

A similar bill was introduced in Tennessee in September. It, too, makes the comparison of Obergefell v. Hodges to Buck v. Bell and Korematsu v. United States.