COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Recent calls for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn marriage equality could lead to a future ballot measure repealing Ohio’s dormant same-sex marriage bans.

Dwayne Steward, executive director of Equality Ohio, said the organization is “having conversations across the state around how we protect marriage equality” in the wake of resolutions introduced in a handful of states urging the Supreme Court to roll back Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision establishing the right to same-sex marriage.

MassResistance, a conservative Massachusetts group, is the driving force behind each resolution in states including Michigan, North Dakota and Idaho, arguing the Supreme Court should “leave unaddressed the natural definition of marriage as a union between one man, a biological male, and one woman, a biological female.”

When NBC4 requested comment on whether MassResistance is currently or will soon be lobbying Ohio lawmakers to also introduce a similar resolution, the organization said it does “not comment on ongoing efforts in other states regarding our initiative.”

“What’s really unfortunate is that our families and who we love and the way we operate in the world is being put up for political debate,” Steward said. “My family and who I am is not up for political debate. I am not political fodder.”

Steward emphasized that MassResistance’s campaign is “a scare tactic” and a long-shot effort given Obergefell is “extremely secure,” as it would take a laborious legal battle to overturn the law. Still, the executive director said Equality Ohio has heard from many couples and families across the state who are concerned, and that their fear is warranted given a recent increase in anti-LGBTQ+ violence and rhetoric.

Should MassResistance’s effort gain further traction and the Supreme Court rolls back Obergefell, Ohio is home to dormant same-sex marriage bans that would be immediately reenacted. Steward said a ballot initiative repealing the ban would need to be approved by Ohio voters to ensure marriage equality is again legal, but that effort would “be a very long battle that would need to be heavily resourced.”

‘Back in the marriage equality fight’

LGBTQ+ advocates have expressed concern the Supreme Court could reassess Obergefell since the June 2022 ruling overturning the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, where Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion calling for his fellow justices to “reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including … Obergefell.”

However, writing for the majority opinion in the 2022 ruling, Justice Samuel Alito said, “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

An effort to roll back marriage equality would likely mirror the crusade against Roe and require a “live dispute,” meaning a case where the issue of same-sex marriage is specifically raised. For example, if a state passed or enforced a law that limited marriage equality in violation of Obergefell, a legal challenge to that law could make way to the Supreme Court.

Steward stressed, before the Supreme Court takes a case, other cases are reviewed by lower courts, and it’s only when lower courts can’t decide on an issue that the Supreme Court steps in. The executive director said “we are not at that place,” as lower court cases regarding marriage equality that could move to the Supreme Court don’t currently exist.

If such a case arises in the future and succeeds, Ohio would reckon with a revived law passed by the Statehouse in 2004 that states “a marriage may only be entered into by one man and one woman.” A constitutional amendment that voters passed later in 2004 that reads, “only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state,” would also resurrected.

The clearest path to nulling these bans would be a ballot measure codifying the right to marriage equality, Steward said. The executive director noted that some Statehouse legislators attempted last year to align Ohio law with the protections set by Obergefell, but the proposal didn’t advance past a single committee hearing.

A federal law signed in 2022, the Respect for Marriage Act, requires a state to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, while also allowing states to decide for themselves whether to issue licenses to same-sex couples. So, if Obergefell falls and Ohio’s bans have yet to be repealed, the act would only require the state to recognize marriages from other states where it is legal.

Equality Ohio, which was founded in 2005 in response to the previous year’s same-sex marriage bans, would be at the forefront of the fight should it surface again. Steward said it’s “bittersweet” to be celebrating the organization’s 20th anniversary this year, while also contemplating another battle for marriage equality.

“I never thought that I would be back in the marriage equality fight, I didn’t think that was gonna have to happen again in my lifetime because there was so much that it took for us to get that right,” said Steward. “We’re going to lead as we have always done in this space, and we’re going to make sure that our families across Ohio remain protected.”

An ‘honest and objective’ ballot measure

A ballot initiative in Ohio codifying marriage equality would not be unprecedented. Also concerned after the fall of Roe in 2022, voters in California, Colorado and Hawaii passed measures in last November’s election to repeal dormant same-sex marriage bans and proactively protect marriage equality.

“If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its previous rulings in the future, leaving the current definition of marriage in Colorado’s constitution jeopardizes the ability of same-sex Coloradans to marry,” read the ballot for Colorado’s Amendment J, which passed with 64% of the vote. “Marriage is a basic right, and Colorado’s constitution should reflect this right for all state residents.”

Ohio’s version would follow in the footsteps of 2023’s Issue 1, another ballot measure that passed with 56% of the vote to establish the right to abortion in the state constitution. Like with Issue 1, the effort would take several years to build a coalition of support before collecting more than 444,000 proponent signatures and operating a multi-million-dollar campaign across the state.

Issue 1 organizers raised more than $39.2 million and spent $26.2 million, campaign finance reports show. Another proposed amendment, which was also called Issue 1 and would’ve changed how Ohio’s political districts are drawn, similarly raised more than $39 million when it was on the ballot last November.

Sen. Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) pointed to 2024’s Issue 1 as a cautionary tale, given the measure failed with 53% voting against the proposal. While supporters of Issue 1 promised it would end the practice of gerrymandering, proponents argued the measure would “gerrymander more than what we have now.” That messaging was intended to confuse voters, Antonio said.

“Republicans in power right now will go to any length to prevent a ballot initiative to go forward that they don’t support, as in the case with the redistricting ballot initiative,” she said. “They lied to the people of Ohio about what that ballot initiative would do and it failed, of course it did.”

The state senator also cited when Issue 1 organizers filed a lawsuit that went to the Ohio Supreme Court against the Ohio Ballot Board, who is in charge of finalizing the language for each ballot. The organizers claimed the board’s wording for Issue 1 was the “most biased, inaccurate and unconditional ballot language ever adopted by the Ohio Ballot Board.”

For those reasons, Antonio said a measure codifying same-sex marriage needs to come at the right time. She argued that such a proposal would only be written “honestly and presented objectively” when Statehouse representation changes.

In the meantime, Antonio is advocating for legislation to ban discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community and to prohibit conversion therapy, practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Still, as Ohio’s first openly gay Statehouse lawmaker who got married in 2015 after Obergefell, the state senator said she’ll be ready if the fight for marriage equality returns.

“I don’t understand what benefit there is to take away a right for a group of people who, until that Supreme Court decision, were denied the right to marry, and what benefit an everyday person gets from taking away that kind of a right from someone else,” said Antonio. “How does my marriage affect anyone else?”