US Congress to protect same-sex marriage
2022.12.08 10:24
US Congress to protect same-sex marriage
Budrigannews.com – Legislation that would guarantee federal recognition of same-sex marriages was born out of concern that the Supreme Court might reverse its support for such unions and was set to receive final congressional approval on Thursday.
The measure would be sent to Democratic President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature before passing the House as expected. The Regard for Marriage Act, as it is called, won Senate endorsement last month.
The law is written to serve as a limited backstop for Obergefell v. Hodges, a 2015 Supreme Court decision that made same-sex marriage legal across the country. Same-sex and interracial marriages would be recognized by the federal government and states as long as they were legal in the states where they were performed. It specifically accommodates religious organizations and institutions that oppose such marriages.
In any case, the regulation wouldn’t ban states from hindering same-sex or interracial relationships in the event that the High Court permitted them to do as such.
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Twelve Republicans and 49 Democrats voted in favor of it when it was passed by the Senate by a vote of 61 to 36, but the majority of Republicans in the chamber voted against it.
A group of Democratic and Republican senators drafted the legislation in response to concerns that the Supreme Court’s increasingly assertive conservative majority might one day overturn the Obergefell decision, jeopardizing same-sex marriage nationwide. When it overturned its landmark 1973 decision that had made abortion legal across the country in June, the court demonstrated its willingness to overturn its own precedents.
In August, the House of Representatives, which has 435 members, approved a broader version of the bill that did not explicitly protect religious liberty. This version received support from all 47 Republicans and all Democrats. It was rejected by most Republicans in the House.
However, despite the opposition of numerous Republican senators, the legislation’s co-sponsors added an amendment stating that religious organizations could not be sued under the legislation in order to obtain the required 60 votes in the Senate.
At a time when some states have pursued measures aimed at limiting the rights of transgender people, Democrats celebrated the bill’s passage in the Senate as a civil rights victory for LGBT rights. Its affirmation of protections for religious groups that disagree with the majority of the country was applauded by Republican supporters.
According to the Census Bureau of the United States, there are approximately 568,000 married same-sex couples in the country.
