South Dakota’s potty panickers have treated birth certificates as sacrosanct indicators of their God‘s anti-transgender will. But now a few Republicans are declaring birth certificates useless for folks seeking the state’s o.k. to get married.
House Bill 1097 changes the identification requirements for obtaining a marriage license. Current law says applicants for wedded bliss must prove their age by providing “a certified copy of a birth certificate or any photographic identification which includes the applicant’s name and date of birth.” HB 1097 strikes that clause and says matrimonial aspirants must prove their age and identification by showing either a passport or a federal, state, or tribal photo ID. Under HB 1097, bringing a birth certificate to the courthouse will not get you hitched.
HB 1097 might not inconvenience most South Dakotans. Most of us can produce our driver licenses or passports more easily than our birth certificates. But current law allows for those forms of identification. HB 1097 doesn’t make anyone’s life easier; it makes some people’s lives more complicated.
I might speculate that this law could be a quiet way to flush out the polygamists out by Pringle. If Warren Jeffs’s cultish followers seek any official marriage licenses, they couldn’t just bring in birth certificates, which may be easier to forge than driver licenses. They’ll have to put their young brides on the official rolls by obtaining passports or driver licenses. But I’m reaching for a reason there—neither the prime sponsor, Representative Rebecca Reimer of Chamberlain, nor any of her nine GOP co-sponsors are Black Hills denizens who might be paying particular attention to Pringle doings.
HB 1097 does do wedded bliss-seekers one favor: it extends the deadline for putting a ring on it in front of a judge, mayor, or preacher from 20 days after signing the license to 90 days.
HB 1097 was just introduced Monday. It awaits assignment to committee.
WTH?!? 🙄🙄🙄
“It’s time for our legislators to focus on issues that really matter to the people of South Dakota and stop trying to give the government control over the personal liberty of South Dakotans” [Michael Geheren.
If the legislature is so foolish as to pass these billls (and it appears they are) they will go to court. A foolish, expensive, irrational, half-witted, imprudent and ill-considered direction in which to proceed. No one is forcing these children to start treatment, certainly not surgery. I hope these legislators spend a few extra years in the Hell they believe in (I don’t) for the way they are punishing these children. I’m out of words and my hands are shaking. What has happened to the state where I was born and have spent my whole life? I’m devastated that my state could be taken over by such horror.
I hadn’t thought about the Pringle thing, but I doubt it has anything to do with them. It comes from the same source as 1057 and the bills that followed 1057. And that source is ALEC. We must not allow ALEC to control our state. Throw the bums out of the capitol. And while we’re at it, throw all corporate lobbyists out of the capitol. I don’t care if it’s too much to ask. Seemingly, so is everything else we ask for.
This is just to prohibit SD transgender adults from getting their gender replaced on their birth certificates. No end to how low they will go. And yes, the state did change them for a while on request. I’m not sure if they still do. But once again, this is aimed at punishing transgenders for being who they are, and prohibiting them from living their lives in peace.
Maria Villaseñor on SNL had some thoughts on these overbearing white males and she’s very funny.
is.gd/w48xOa
What about the Hutterites? Do they get marriage licenses? Many don’t have drivers licenses or other forms of ID.
Well, I don’t know. What’s cheaper and easier to get? I expect more people have a driver license handy when they are hot to trot and want to get hitched fast.