“Shall the state constitution be amended to repeal the Legislature’s authority to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples?” That’s the suggested language for a November general election ballot question that would remove the prospect of legislative action to ban or de-legalize same-sex marriage. It aims to protect such marriages, legalized here in 2013.

House Bill 2802, authorizing the constitutional amendment question, has crossed over from the state House to the Senate. It would reverse a 1998 vote that gave the Legislature its current constitutional authority to restrict marriages to opposite-sex couples.