The House of Representatives this morning passed the Respect for Marriage Act, the last step before it goes to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law. Once the law is on the books, states and the federal government will have to honor all legal marriages from any state, even if the Supreme Court at some point reverses its 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. The bill also provides protections for interracial marriages, too, just in case the Supremes go mad and try to undo the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision that did away with “anti-miscegenation” laws. President Biden is expected to sign the bill quickly.
The legislation passed the Senate just last week, with an entire dozen votes from Republicans preventing a filibuster, although in any sane country it should have been a unanimous vote. The House passed it today on a bipartisan vote of 258 to 169.
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The bill had already passed the House last summer, but the second vote today was necessary because the Senate had added some redundant but reassuring language about protecting “religious liberty” in order to make some Republicans feel better. Just to cover the culture wars bases, the bill now also specifies that states don’t have to recognize polygamous marriages, not that any states are on the verge of legalizing polygamy. Somehow, no Republicans demanded a further ban on marriages between nerds and their anime waifus. All the same, bronies shouldn’t go getting their hopes up about filing a joint tax return with their Twilight Sparkle body pillows.
As we’ve noted previously, the biggest achievement in the bill is its repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages. That had already been made null and void by Obergefell, but repealing it prevents DOMA from rising from the grave like some homophobic zombie if the Court undoes Obergefell some day. If that happens, states would be able to ban issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but they would still have to fully recognize all marriages from other states — the only real effect it would have on same-sex couples in such states is that they’d need to go to another state to get married. (A constitutional amendment would be necessary to actually force all states to issue marriage licenses as they are now, while Obergefell holds).
Before the vote, WHYY reports, a number of gay members of Congress spoke about what the bill’s protections meant for them and their families:
Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., said he was set to marry “the love of my life” next year and that it is “unthinkable” that his marriage might not be recognized in some states.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., said he and his husband should be able to visit each other in the hospital just like any other married couple and receive spousal benefits “regardless of if your spouse’s named Samuel or Samantha.”
Several Republicans also claimed the bill would supposedly undermine marriage, but somebody else’s marriage is none of their damn business so the hell with quoting that nonsense.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a Washington Post op-ed yesterday that she’s
overjoyed that one of the final bills I will sign as speaker will be the Respect for Marriage Act: ensuring the federal government will never again stand in the way of marrying the person you love.
And that’s a heck of a fine note to end on, so let’s celebrate equality and have some of those cakes we like, too.
[WHYY / WaPo / Photo: Ted Eytan (cropped from larger original), Creative Commons License 2.0 ]
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