U.S. Senate Pases Respect for Marriage Act

Despite the wailing, threats of Republican primary challenges and self-enriching money begs of the racist, anti-gay scamvangelists and the falsely self-described "family values" organizations that make money marketing hate, enough Senate Republicans joined with Democrats to pass the Respect for Marriage Act that protects same sex marriages and interracial marriages from possible threats of the overturning of the the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and/or the 1968 ruling in Loving v. Virginia (both of which had their basis in the right to privacy in ones intimate relationships) by the extremist majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.   In overturning Roe v. Wade, the Inquisition like majority on the Court basically gutted the implied constitutional right to privacy on which Loving and Obergefell rely.  Worse yet, Justice Clarence Thomas (for whom I have limitless contempt) went further to flat out stated in his concurring opinion in Dobbs that he rejected a constitutional right to privacy that he wanted the same sex marriage ruling and the Court's ruling on the right to use contraception to be reconsidered (Thomas is too stupid to realize that this would also put his own interracial marriage at risk).  It was in this context in the wake of this year's Dobbs ruling that the Respect Marriage Act was introduce to protects both same sex marriages and interracial marriages from a renegade U.S. Supreme Court.   Ironically, the Dobbs ruling harmed Republicans significantly in the recent mid-term elections and set the stage for passage of this act which is anathema to the SCOTUS extremists.   A piece in the Washington Post as well as one at Boston.com look at the vote  which will likely see quick approval in the House of Representatives and signing by President Biden.   Here are highlights from the piece in the Post:

The Senate on Tuesday passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which would enshrine marriage equality in federal law, granting protections to same-sex and interracial couples.

The bill passed in a 61-36 vote, with 12 Republicans joining Democrats to vote for it. Three senators did not vote. The bill includes a bipartisan amendment that clarifies protections for religious liberties, and it will now return to the House for another vote before it can go to President Biden to sign into law.

The 12 Republican senators who voted “yes” were Roy Blunt (Mo.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Susan Collins (Maine), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Cynthia M. Lummis (Wyo.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rob Portman (Ohio), Mitt Romney (Utah), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Todd C. Young (Ind.).

Before the final vote, Collins stood to “thank all of the Republicans who have supported this. I know that it’s not been easy, but they’ve done the right thing.”

[President] Biden celebrated the passage shortly after the tally was announced.

“With today’s bipartisan Senate passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, the United States is on the brink of reaffirming a fundamental truth: love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love,” the president said in a statement. “For millions of Americans, this legislation will safeguard the rights and protections to which LGBTQI+ and interracial couples and their children are entitled.”

The Respect for Marriage Act would not force states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples but would require that people be considered married in any state as long as the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed. The bill also would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and allowed states to decline to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. That law has remained on the books despite being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry.

In his June concurrence with the decision to overturn Roe, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the high court should also examine previous rulings that legalized the right to buy and use contraception without government restriction (Griswold v. Connecticut), same-sex relationships (Lawrence v. Texas), and marriage equality (Obergefell v. Hodges).

“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote. “Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous’ … we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”

Thomas’s opinion set off alarm bells among proponents of marriage equality, who pointed out that if the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell, as it did Roe, then the right to same-sex marriage would similarly fall to the states. Currently 35 states have statutes or constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage that would go into effect if Obergefell were overturned, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ equality.

In July, the House passed the Respect for Marriage Act, but the Senate delayed its vote on the bill until after the midterm elections. The decision to postpone the vote was negotiated on a bipartisan basis and was made to ensure that there were enough votes to pass the measure.

[T]he bill does not authorize the federal government to recognize polygamous marriages and confirms that nonprofit religious organizations would not be required to provide “any services, facilities, or goods for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage.”

Several religious leaders and groups expressed support for the amended bill, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a joint statement this month, the bipartisan group of senators that worked on the amendment touted its protections for religious liberties as much as the protections for same-sex and interracial couples.

[Chuck Schumer said] “A decade ago, it would have strained all of our imaginations to envision both sides talking about protecting the rights of same-sex married couples,” he said. “America does move forward, although sometimes in difficult ways, and sometimes it’s two steps forward, one step back. But today is a big step forward.”

Many in the LGBT community will give a shy of relief once the Act is signed into law.