Biden to sign bipartisan marriage rights bill into law | #alaska | #politics


President Joe Biden is expected to sign legislation Tuesday protecting marriage for LGBTQ+ and interracial couples, a historic move that gained support from lawmakers across the aisle and which was spurred by the Supreme Court’s decision over the summer to overturn federal abortion protections. 


What You Need To Know

  • President Joe Biden is expected to sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law on Tuesday, which passed both the House and Senate with bipartisan support
  • Thirty-nine House Republicans joined every House Democrat in voting for its passage; the bill passed in the Senate with the support of 12 Republicans
  • The bill says that if a same-sex or interracial couple is legally married in one state and goes to a new state, the new state must recognize that union 
  • The bill’s passage was a historic move that was spurred by the Supreme Court’s decision over the summer to overturn federal abortion protections

At the time, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that the high court should, in the future, “reconsider” a number of other key rulings, including landmark decisions that granted a right to contraception and same-sex marriage.

“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.”

The 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut protected the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on contraception. The high court ruled 7-2 in Griswold.

In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Lawrence v. Texas that a Texas law which made it a crime for two people of the same sex to engage in intimate consensual sexual conduct violated the Due Process clause of the Constitution, invalidating sodomy laws nationwide.

And 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges held that the right for same-sex couples to marry is guaranteed under both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The 5-4 ruling legalized same-sex marriage all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and all of the United States’ territories.

“It is protecting against a potential future U.S. Supreme Court decision that has not happened yet, and may never happen,” Paul Schiff Berman, a law professor at the George Washington University, told Spectrum News of the Respect for Marriage Act. The bill says that if a same-sex or interracial couple is legally married in one state and goes to a new state, the new state must recognize that union. 

It also repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman. That act was nullified by the ruling in Obergefell, but is still on the books.

The bill does not, however, require states to change their laws in order to issue marriage licenses and ensures that religious non-profits will not be required to facilitate marriages that go against their beliefs. It further makes clear “that the bill does not require or authorize the federal government to recognize polygamous marriages,” the result of negotiations within the Senate aimed at garnering Republican support.

“It requires every other state in the country to recognize that marriage as valid, whether or not those other states go along with the rule,” Schiff Berman added. “So it’s really a federal recognition statute more than it is a federal right to gay marriage.”

The Supreme Court’s summer ruling gave Democrats – and select Republicans – added urgency to codify marriage rights into law. Democrats in the Senate pushed a vote on the bill until after the midterm elections in November, aiming to hash out differences before sending it back to the House. 

Ultimately, the Respect for Marriage Act passed with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, with 39 House Republicans joining every House Democrat in voting for its passage. The bill passed in the Senate with the support of 12 Republicans. 

Lawmakers in some states split their votes either for or against the bill, while others presented a united front. 

All of the Republicans in Kentucky’s delegation, for example, voted against the bill, with some saying they did not think the legislation was necessary. 

“This legislation is ostensibly designed to respond to the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade,” Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., said in part. “But the majority in Dobbs was clear that this legislation is wholly unnecessary.” 

Kentucky’s only Democrat in Congress, Rep. John Yarmuth, tweeted he was proud to support the bill, writing: “LGBTQ & interracial couples are now guaranteed the legal recognition they deserve—regardless of who they are or whom they love.” 

Meanwhile, Republican senators from Alaska and North Carolina – Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan, as well as North Carolina’s Sen. Tom Tillis and Sen. Richard Burr – voted in favor of the bill, as did Maine’s split Senate delegation of Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats. 

States where senators split their votes included Montana, where Democrat Sen. Jon Tester voted in favor of the bill while Republican Sen. Steve Daines voted against the legislation; in Utah, Republican Sen. Mitt Romney voted for the bill, while Republican Sen. Mike Lee voted against it. Three of Utah’s four Republican representatives in the House also voted in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act; Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, voted “present.”

President Biden has praised the “bipartisan passage” of the bill, saying in part: “After the uncertainty of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Congress has restored a measure of security to millions of marriages and families.” 

Biden is expected to sign the bill into law alongside the first lady, vice president and second gentleman on Tuesday, per the White House.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday there would be thousands of people in attendance at Tuesday’s bill signing, including musical guests, noting the day’s events will “give peace of mind to millions of LGBTQI+ and interracial couples who will finally be guaranteed the rights and protections to which they and their children are entitled to.” 

“The president will also note that there is much more work to be done to protect the LGBTQI+ individuals across the country,” Jean-Pierre added, noting that one such piece of legislation is the Equality Act, a bill that would encode anti-discrimination protections against sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity into federal law with respect to housing, credit, employment and other federally-funded programs. 

Spectrum News’ Justin Tasolides contributed to this report. 




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