South Carolina H 5501: Victor B. Shelburne

Bill Text

2025-2026 Bill 5501 Text of Previous Version (Apr. 02, 2026) - South Carolina Legislature Online 

South Carolina General Assembly
126th Session, 2025-2026

Bill 5501

Indicates Matter Stricken
Indicates New Matter

(Text matches printed bills. Document has been reformatted to meet World Wide Web specifications.)

A concurrent RESOLUTION

TO REJECT THE 
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES OBERGEFELL DECISION AND TO CALL ON THE 
SUPREME COURT TO REVERSE OBERGEFELL AND RESTORE THE NATURAL LAW DEFINITION OF 
MARRIAGE, A UNION OF ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN AND TO INSIST ON RESTORING THE ISSUE 
OF MARRIAGE AND ENFORCEMENT OF ALL LAWS PERTAINING TO MARRIAGE BACK TO THE 
SEVERAL STATES AND THE PEOPLE. 

Whereas, the decision 
by the Supreme Court of the United States in Obergefell v Hodges, 576 
U.S. 644 (2015), is at odds with the Constitution of the United States and the 
principles upon which the United States is established; and

Whereas, liberty has 
long been understood as individual freedom from governmental action, not as a 
right to a particular governmental entitlement; and

Whereas, Obergefell 
invokes a definition of "liberty" that the Framers would not have recognized, 
rejecting the idea captured in the Declaration of Independence that human 
dignity is innate, and instead suggested that it comes from the government; and

Whereas, when the 
Framers proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created 
equal" and "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," they 
referred to a vision of mankind in which all humans are created in the image of 
God and therefore of inherent worth; and

Whereas, Obergefell 
undermines this vision by declaring that citizens must seek dignity from the 
state; and

Whereas, Obergefell relies on 
the dangerous fiction of treating the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth 
Amendment to the Constitution as a font of substantive rights, a doctrine that 
strays from the full meaning of the Constitution and exalts judges at the 
expense of the people from whom they derive their authority; and

Whereas, Obergefell's inversion 
of the original meaning of liberty causes collateral damage to other aspects of 
our constitutional order that protect liberty, including religious liberty; and

Whereas, the Supreme Court 
recognized in United States v Windsor, 57031 U.S. 744 (2013), that the 
definition of marriage is "an area that has long been regarded as a virtually 
exclusive province of the States," meaning that South Carolina, and not the 
Supreme Court, has the right to regulate marriage for its citizens; and

Whereas, Obergefell requires 
states to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples and to recognize same sex 
marriages in complete contravention of their own state constitutions and the 
will of their voters, thus undermining the civil liberties of those states' 
residents and voters; and

Whereas, marriage as an 
institution has been recognized as the union of one man and one woman for more 
than two thousand years, and within common law, the basis of the United States' 
Anglo American legal tradition, for more than 800 years; and

Whereas, Obergefell arbitrarily 
and unjustly rejected this definition of marriage in favor of a novel, flawed 
interpretation of key clauses within the Constitution and our nation's legal 
and cultural precedents; and

Whereas, the Obergefell 
Decision was illegitimate because two of the Justices in the majority ruling, 
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, had previously officiated same 
sex weddings, and thus were not impartial triers of fact, and therefore should 
have recused themselves according to 28 U.S.C. Section 455; and

Whereas, Kentucky county clerk 
Kim Davis was persecuted for her faith in refusing to issue same sex marriage 
licenses, and the Supreme Court declined to uphold and defend her First 
Amendment rights on account of the passage of Obergefell v Hodges; and

Whereas, since court rulings 
are not laws and only legislatures elected by the People may pass laws, 
Obergefell is an illegitimate overreach; and

Whereas, the people of the State 
of South Carolina voted to define marriage as between one man and one woman via 
constitutional amendment approved at the 2006 General Election by a vote of 
nearly 78% to 22%. Now, therefore,

Be it resolved by the House 
of Representatives, the Senate concurring:

That the members of the 
South Carolina General Assembly, by this resolution, reject the Supreme Court 
of the United States Obergefell decision and call on the supreme court to 
reverse Obergefell and restore the natural law definition of marriage, a union 
of one man and one woman and to insist on restoring the issue of marriage and 
enforcement of all laws pertaining to marriage back to the several states and 
the people.

Be it further resolved South 
Carolina General Assembly calls upon the Supreme Court of the United States to 
reverse Obergefell and restore the natural law definition