The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 demands that tribes generally afford similar rights to the extent not inconsistent with their cultural identity or political integrity.
Constitution’s Bill of Rights bind states and the federal government, sometimes both, but not American Indian tribes. The Osage vote was about two years in the making, with the measure to make the change in tribal law coming a few months before the 2015 Supreme Court decision and winding its way through the tribal government before it was put up for a referendum. The Osage Nation has more than 20,000 citizens and is one of Oklahoma’s larger tribes. The vote allows the tribe’s judicial branch to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. Unofficial results of Monday’s special election in the Osage Nation in northern Oklahoma showed 52 percent approved a referendum amending the definition of marriage in the tribe’s legal code to include same-sex couples, officials said this week. Tribes should, unless they have a good reason not to,” said Robert Clinton, a professor specializing in tribal law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. As sovereign entities, they are not necessarily bound by the Supreme Court decision, leaving many in the precarious position of trying to decide whether to make the hot-button issue part of their traditional law. The same-sex case known as Obergefell v Hodges has rippled through the 567 federally recognized Indian Nations.
