ARepublican state lawmaker in Michigan said gay marriage should be “illegal again,” an inflammatory remark that prompted swift rebuke from Democrats.
State Rep. Josh Schriver (R) made the controversial statement on X on Monday, just weeks after the GOP’s strong showing in Michigan during the November election, where they wrested back control of the statehouse.
“Make gay marriage illegal again. This is not remotely controversial, nor extreme,” Schriver wrote. “America only ‘accepted’ gay marriage after it was thrusted into her by a perverted Supreme Court ruling.”
He pointed to old remarks from then-Sen. Barack Obama, saying the former president was once “more conservative on marriage than many Republicans today.” Obama first endorsed marriage equality in 2012 — the first U.S. president to do so — and later said he believed the Constitution guaranteed the right to marriage for all same-sex couples.
The Supreme Court agreed in a 5-4 ruling in 2015, a historic victory for queer Americans.
Republicans have embraced culture wars targeting queer Americans in recent years, particularly trans people. The party has pushed through laws blocking young trans kids from gender-affirming health care, barring them from school sports teams and cheered efforts to limit access to public bathrooms.
“Please explain how dissolving my marriage, or that of the hundreds of thousands of other same-sex couples living in America, provides a benefit to your constituents or anyone else,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), who is married to a woman, wrote on X. “You’re not interested in helping Michiganders. You want only to hurt those you hate. Shame on you.”
Fellow state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is gay, said his colleague’s remarks were both “controversial and extreme, along with anti-family.”
Schriver has courted controversy in the past. In February, he was stripped of his office staff and committee assignments in the Michigan statehouse after sharing conspiracy theories linked to the “great replacement.” The false notion relies on racist tropes and claims white Christians are being intentionally replaced by immigrants.
At the time he said he was opposed to racism, but defended his social media posts and said he found it “strange” that there was an “agenda to demoralize and reduce the white portion of our population,” according to The Detroit News.