House Passes the Respect for Marriage Act
The US Senate is currently 50-50 with each party controlling half of the chamber. The hope of passing any bills in the near future is quite slim as an upcoming break in Congress is set to happen throughout August (Alejandro Barba/Unsplash).
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Respect for Marriage Act, in hopes of codifying same-sex marriage. In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, House Democrat Jerry Nadler created this bill to ensure that the Supreme Court cannot overturn Obergefell v. Hodges. The Senate will vote on the bill in the upcoming weeks. The partisan split in the Senate and the filibuster make the potential passing of the bill uncertain.
Article by Georgia Simon, Associate White House Reporter
WASHINGTON - The United States House of Representatives passed the Respect for Marriage Act in a 267-157 vote on Tuesday. The goal of the bill is to federally protect same-sex marriages, as the current, conservative-leaning Supreme Court attempts to revisit cases like Obergefell v. Hodges that established precedent for marriage equality. Forty-seven Republicans voted in favor of the bill alongside a unanimous vote from the House Democrats.
Representative and chair of the House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler (D-NY) first introduced the bill. Nadler said the bill was “an important step towards protecting the many families and children who rely on the rights and privileges underpinned by the constitutional guarantee of marriage equality.”
The Respect for Marriage Act is considered bipartisan as many Republicans of both chambers are in support of the recent bill. A recent poll has also shown that 70% of adults support same-sex marriage.
The uncertainty as to whether the bill will pass in the Senate is palpable, with the impending unpredictability of the sixty-vote filibuster, “a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation,” as defined by The Washington Post. The bill needs at least ten Republican Senators to vote in favor of the Act for it to pass into law.
Democrats are alarmed, as the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade was overturned in late June, leaving abortion rights up to each state and many with increased concern that the Supreme Court will now direct attention to overturning same-sex marriage. Alongside protecting same-sex marriage, this bill safeguards interracial marriage and stops discrimination on race, ethnicity, sex, etc.
"LGBTQ Americans and those in interracial marriages deserve to have certainty that they will continue to have their right to equal marriage recognized, no matter where they live," said House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer.
The aftermath of overturning fifty-years of precedent sparked national outrage when Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that other rulings should also be reviewed.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” said Thomas.
Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are the three liberal Justices who wrote in their dissent after Roe was overturned that “no one should be confident that this majority is done with its work.”
“Imagine telling the next generation of Americans, my generation, we no longer have the right to marry who we love. Congress can’t allow that to happen,” said openly gay Congressman Mondaire Jones (D-NY).
The US Senate is currently 50-50 with each party controlling half of the chamber. The hope of passing any bills in the near future is quite slim as an upcoming break in Congress is set to happen throughout August.
Chief White House Correspondent Emily Barkann contributed edits.