WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate approved legislation Tuesday that would enshrine protections for same-sex and interracial marriages, codifying many of the rights that would disappear if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn those landmark decisions the way it overturned the nationwide right to an abortion this summer.
The 61-36 bipartisan vote sends the bill back to the U.S. House, where lawmakers expect to give it their final stamp of approval soon, before sending it to President Joe Biden. The House voted 267-157 in July to approve the original bill, but must vote again after a bipartisan group of senators added in religious liberty protections.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, wore the same tie Tuesday he wore to his daughter’s wedding and recounted a conversation he had with his daughter and her wife following the death of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“I remember that awful feeling around the dinner table and I distinctly remember the question my daughter and her wife asked, ‘Could our right to marry be undone?’ “ Schumer said.
“It’s a scary, but necessary acknowledgment that despite all the progress we’ve made, the constitutional right to same-sex marriage is not even a decade old and exists only by the virtue of a very narrow 5-4 Supreme Court decision,” Schumer continued. “And we all know the court has changed since that decision.”
Retiring Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, retiring North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito, Maine’s Susan Collins, Iowa’s Joni Ernst, Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, retiring Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, Utah’s Mitt Romney, Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Indiana’s Todd Young voted for the bill.
Repeal of Defense of Marriage Act
The legislation would repeal the 1996 law known as the Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The federal law also allowed states to ignore same-sex unions legally performed in other states.
It would ensure that if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn the cases that have legalized same-sex and interracial marriages, the federal government would continue to recognize those unions, a step necessary for hundreds of federal benefits including Social Security and veterans benefits.
The bill, known as the Respect for Marriage Act, would require states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages performed in states that keep the unions legal, though it wouldn’t require states to keep same-sex or interracial marriages legal if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn those cases.
Cathryn Oakley, Human Rights Campaign state legislative director and senior counsel, said during a briefing in mid-November the bill is a “very important” part of the legislation LGBTQ rights advocates have been pressing Congress to pass for years.
She also sought to clarify misconceptions the legislation will allow any two people to enter a same-sex or interracial marriage anywhere in the country, should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn those cases.
“Congress has done everything in this bill that it can responsibly do,” Oakley said. “What they do not have the ability to responsibly do, is to tell states that they must marry two people of the same sex.”
Oakley said U.S. lawmakers “are taking the maximum responsible action that they can take at this point” under the powers they have within the U.S. Constitution.
State bans
