Text of MO HCR 49 (2026)

SECOND REGULAR SESSION HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 49 103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE TITUS. 7239H.01I JOSEPH ENGLER, Chief Clerk WHEREAS, the Obergefell v. Hodges decision by the Supreme Court of the United 2 States is at odds with the Constitution of the United States, 576 U.S. 644 (2015)(hereafter 3 Obergefell), and the principles of the United States; and 4 5 WHEREAS, liberty has long been understood as individual freedom from 6 governmental action, not as a right to a particular governmental entitlement; and 7 8 WHEREAS, the Obergefell decision ignores the Declaration of Independence's 9 proclamation that human dignity is innate and that "all men are created equal" and "endowed 10 by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"; instead, such decision sees dignity coming 11 from the government; and 12 13 WHEREAS, Obergefell denies the framers' understanding that liberty flows from our 14 innate dignity, causing collateral damage to other aspects of our constitutional order that 15 protects liberty, including religious liberty; and 16 17 WHEREAS, Obergefell relies on the dangerous fiction of treating the Due Process 18 Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States as a font of 19 substantive rights, a doctrine that strays from the full meaning of the Constitution of the 20 United States and exalts judges at the expense of the people from whom they derive their 21 authority; and 22 23 WHEREAS, the Supreme Court of the United States recognized in United States v. 24 Windsor, 570 U.S. 744 (2013), that the definition of marriage is "an area that has long been 25 regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the States". Therefore, the state of Missouri, not 26 the Supreme Court of the United States, has the right to regulate marriage for its residents; 27 and 28 29 WHEREAS, Obergefell requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples 30 and to recognize same-sex marriages in contravention of the states' constitutions and the 31 expressed will of their voters, thus undermining the civil liberties of those states' residents and 32 voters; and 33 34 WHEREAS, marriage as an institution has been recognized as the union of one man 35 and one woman for more than two thousand years, and within common law, the basis of the 36 United States' Anglo-American legal tradition, for more than eight hundred years; and 37 38 WHEREAS, the Obergefell decision arbitrarily and unjustly rejects the definition of 39 marriage in favor of a novel, flawed interpretation of key clauses within the Constitution of 40 the United States and our nation's legal and cultural precedents; and 41 42 WHEREAS, the Obergefell decision was illegitimate because two of the Justices on 43 the Supreme Court of the United States in the majority ruling, specifically Justices Ruth 44 Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, had previously officiated same-sex weddings and thus 45 were not impartial triers of fact. Therefore, those Justices should have recused themselves 46 according to 28 U.S.C. Section 455; and 47 48 WHEREAS, Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis was persecuted for her faith in 49 refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, and the Supreme Court of the United States 50 declined to uphold and defend her First Amendment rights on account of the Obergefell 51 decision; and 52 53 WHEREAS, since court rulings are not laws and only legislatures elected by the 54 people may pass laws, Obergefell is an illegitimate overreach; and 55 56 WHEREAS, the people of the state of Missouri voted to define marriage as between 57 one man and one woman in Amendment 2 in 2004, by a vote of nearly seventy-one percent to 58 twenty-nine percent: 59 60 NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the members of the House of 61 Representatives of the One Hundred Third General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the 62 Senate concurring therein, hereby reject the Obergefell decision and call upon the Supreme 63 Court of the United States to reverse Obergefell and restore the natural law definition of 64 marriage, a union of one man and one woman, as was recognized at the founding; and HCR 49 2 65 66 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Missouri General Assembly insists on 67 restoring the issue of marriage and enforcement of all laws pertaining to marriage back to the 68 several states and the people; and 69 70 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chief Clerk of the Missouri House of 71 Representatives be instructed to prepare a properly inscribed copy of this resolution for the 72 Supreme Court of the United States. Bill Body End HCR 49 3