South Carolina lawmakers want to expand current prohibitions against same-sex marriage by refusing to recognize such marriages sanctioned by other states and by denying state benefits, such as insurance or pension payments, to same-sex partners.
"You are seeing a lot of states all across this great nation doing what South Carolina has proposed," said state Rep. Jeff Duncan, a Republican who represents Laurence and Newberry counties. "That is to affirm and reaffirm that marriage is between a man and a woman."
The proposals were introduced shortly before the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision affirming the legality of gay marriages. The measures, which Duncan co-sponsors, are awaiting House action.
Some state lawmakers said the recent proposals were warranties for existing law, making it more difficult to circumvent them.
"In a number of states, what we are seeing is a reaction to the Massachusetts Supreme Court case," said Warren Redman-Gress, executive director of Alliance for Full Acceptance, a gay rights advocacy organization in Charleston.
The issue has gained momentum in the wake of the Massachusetts decision and President Bush's reference in his January State of the Union address.
President Bush has said he supports the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The act states that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, but allows states to set their own policies. He has stopped short of saying he would propose a Constitutional amendment mandating that marriage be between a man and a woman. But he has expressed sentiments similar to Duncan's.
Redman-Gress said he worried that South Carolina's proposal could influence companies in the private sector to follow the state's lead.
"It sets up South Carolina as a state that says we are not going to consider equality in any shape or form," he said.
The response of states to the same-sex marriage debate has varied widely. Ohio's two-week-old Defense of Marriage Act mandates that marriage only be between a man and a woman, but allows local governments and private employers to give benefits to domestic partners.
Wisconsin lawmakers recently proposed a civil marriage bill that would give marriage equality to all state residents.
In Rhode Island, several state representatives proposed a law last month prohibiting same-sex marriages. The measure also would not recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. Idaho lawmakers proposed amending that state's constitution to explicitly define marriage as a man-woman union.
"The reason for bringing it was the Massachusetts ruling," said Henry Kulczyk, an Idaho state Republican representative. Kulczyk, one of the bill's sponsors, said he could see couples across the country getting married in Massachusetts and challenging laws in their home states.
"If they can find a right in Massachusetts for homosexual marriage, why can't they find the right in the Idaho constitution," Kulczyk said. He called the amendment "fire insurance."
But constitutional scholar Eldon Wedlock says the measures by South Carolina and other states go against the Constitution's full faith and credit clause, which requires states to recognize each other's laws.
Wedlock, a professor at the University of South Carolina Law School in Columbia, said the courts have not passed on the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a statutory exemption to the full faith and credit mandate.
Some precedents suggest the act could be upheld, but some arguments suggest otherwise, he said.
"The issue is really completely up for grabs," Wedlock said. "We have got to go through the prize fight and see who wins at the end."