The marriage modifications bill, designated HB 134 in the 2024 Utah Legislature, was sponsored by Republican Rep. Anthony E. Loubet who told St. George News this bill addresses the validation and recognition of marriage regardless of the race, ethnicity or national origin of the parties in the marriage.

He said his legislation clarifies the current law.

“It was very clear that you couldn’t discriminate against somebody getting married, based off their race, ethnicity or national origin,” Loubet said. “But what this does is update the code so it reflects what our current practices are and then allows people the peace of mind knowing that if anything ever happens or changes on the federal side, they still have their protection on the state level.”

Loubet said he became aware of his district’s members’ concerns over interracial marriage after conservative justice Clarence Thomas suggested the Supreme Court should reconsider some critical decisions. This included the 2015 case establishing the right to same-sex marriage, following the SCOTUS decision to overturn 1973’s Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion.

Loubet said the media highlighted that Thomas left out the landmark case of Loving v. Virginia, the civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967. The court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment. The media pointed out that Thomas, 74, is a Black man who has been married to wife Virginia Thomas, a white woman, since 1987.

The equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment requires that people, not just citizens, in similar circumstances be treated the same under the law.

“There is a kind of hypocrisy for Justice Thomas to conspicuously omit Loving v. Virginia on the list of cases he thinks were wrongly decided,” Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and Georgetown Law, said in an interview published by Courthouse News Service. “The right to interracial marriage was grounded on the same constellation of privacy rights that the court used in cases on contraception, same-sex marriage and same-sex intimacy.”

Loubet said the media focused on whether the Loving case could be overturned. The case was regarding Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, a couple from the town of Central Point, Virginia. Loving was a white construction worker and Jeter had mixed Black and Native American ancestry. They were longtime friends who had fallen in love. In June 1958, they exchanged wedding vows in Washington, D.C., where interracial marriage was legal and then returned home to Virginia.

On July 11, 1958, five weeks after their wedding, the Lovings were raised out of their bed at about 2 a.m. and arrested by the local sheriff. Richard and Mildred were indicted on charges of violating Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, which deemed interracial marriages a felony.

When the couple pleaded guilty the following year, Judge Leon M. Bazile sentenced them to one year in prison but suspended the sentence on the condition that they would leave Virginia and not return together for 25 years. The couple then moved to Washington, D.C.

On June 12, 1967, in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court announced its ruling in Loving v. Virginia, that Virginia’s interracial marriage law violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

After researching Utah Law on interracial marriage, Loubet said he found that “the law in the books is just horribly drafted.”

The law states if an interracial couple is married before July 1, 1965, the marriage is recognized by the state. But the law doesn’t tell what happens after that date, and references sections are no longer in the Utah code, Loubet said.

“I’m in a very diverse district. I’ve got a lot of mixed races, marriages and relationships,” Loubet said. “So when I was campaigning going door to door, people would ask me about that. That was an issue that they were kind of concerned about. If that ever was overturned, what would that mean for them? And so this bill would help give them peace of mind that they will be able to know that if anything ever did happen, our state law would protect their relationships.”

So far, Loubet said he hasn’t had any opposition to the bill during the legislative session.

“What I have had is a lot of people didn’t realize that this was on the books and how unclear it was,” he said. “And so there is a lot of support from my colleagues who want to update it. So that way, it’s clear.”

Iron County Rep. Rex Shipp told St. George News that he supports the marriage modifications bill.

“I thought that was a great bill. Why should we get between two people who want to spend the rest of their lives together and want to be married?” Shipp said. “It doesn’t matter. I think too many times we focus on race and sort of the most important things instead of the most important things.”

Shipp, who is white, has seven children, four of whom are naturally born. He and his wife adopted three more children who are biracial. Some of his children have since married into other races or ethnic groups.

“I think we need to be colorblind when it comes to some of this stuff,” Shipp said.