Legislation to recognize same-sex marriage is back before the Navajo Nation Council.
Both the council and the public had mixed reactions to a similar proposal earlier this year, and it was eventually withdrawn.
The legislation would repeal a 2005 same-sex marriage ban in the tribal nation, which lies within New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. It also includes revisions to spousal property rights and employee benefits.
Council Member Eugene Tso introduced the legislation.
“This is all I ask of you, my people all over: When are we going to stop discriminating?” Delegate Tso asked during a committee meeting in April. “It hurts them.”
In that meeting, council members voted against it.
Many objections from the council and public were based on some people’s Christian beliefs that gay marriage should not be legal.
Jennifer Nez Denetdale teaches Indigenous gender and sexuality at the University of New Mexico.
“The forces of colonialism — including an American education, introduction of Christianity and the ‘civilizing’ program through the federal government — have led to this loss in our memory that at one time, depending on who you talk to, we recognized three to five genders,” Nez Denetdale said at that same April meeting.
Eventually, Tso withdrew the legislation, and reintroduced it last week. The Navajo Nation’s summer session starts July 18.
It is set to be heard in the Health Education & Human Services Committee first, but that date hasn’t been posted, as of Friday.
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