Two Wyoming Legislators Want To Introduce Law Defining Marriage As That Only Existing Between Man And Woman

The Torrington Telegram is reporting that Wyoming State Representative Owen Petersen (R-Mountain View) and State Senator Curt Meier (R-LaGrange) plan to co-sponsor a resolution at the 2011 General Session that would permit voters to determined whether or not the state should grant constitutional authority to same sex marriage. On September 24th, 2010, Wyoming joined nine other states signing a brief that said the federal court system violated its judicial authority when it ruled that the United States Constitution should include same sex couples in the realm of legal marriage. Currently Wyoming law defines marriage as “the legal union between a man and woman,” but the state still recognises marriages performed out of state, suggesting, therefore, that same sex marriages licences obtained elsewhere are valid. The proposed resolution would make explicit the status of marriage licenses obtained out of state, and, the legislators, hope, grant the state, not the federal court system, the final word on the constitutional authority of gay marriage. In 2009, legislators proposed allowing a vote on an amendment to the state constitution that would bar out of state same marriages, but that failed. Meier, who admits that in the past several years a number of social issue proposals have been killed in committee, says “I really think the resolution I’m bringing forward is about the right of the people to vote on this issue. We need to define Wyoming’s community standard and give people the opportunity to vote.”