House passes same-sex-marriage protections, citing threat from Roe decision
WASHINGTON — House Democrats and a sizable group of Republicans voted Tuesday in favor of protecting same-sex marriage from being overturned by the Supreme Court.
The House voted to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, 267-157, with 47 Republicans joining Democrats. The bill would codify same-sex marriage into federal law and bolster other marriage protections, and came in response to fears that the Supreme Court may strike down such protections after overturning in June the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that established the constitutional right to an abortion.
The bill would also formally repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
The measure is widely expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to clear a filibuster in the Senate, where Democrats and Republicans hold 50 seats apiece.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cited Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, in which he argued that same-sex marriage and access to contraception were also not inherently protected by the U.S. Constitution.
“Make no mistake, while his legal reasoning is twisted, and unsound, it is crucial that we take Justice Thomas and the extremist movement behind him at their word. This is what they intend to do,” Pelosi said.
But House Republicans, who spent much of the debate arguing on items other than marriage itself, called the vote a last-minute political ploy by Democrats to gin up support from their voters ahead of the November midterm elections.
“We’re debating this bill today because it is July in an election year, and inflation is at a level not seen in 40 years,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is expected to head the House Judiciary Committee if Republicans retake control of the House in November.
In response to a question Tuesday about the legislation, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a briefing that President Biden “strongly supports the bill. He’s grateful that this has bipartisan support in the House.”
She added that “the exact reason for why this bill is being voted on is because of Republicans’ assault on the recognition of Americans’ right to privacy, which has been recognized and upheld over decades by judges appointed by a wide range of presidents — that puts us here. That is why the House had to vote for this bill, so that we can protect people’s rights because of what we have seen this past several weeks.”
A handful of hard-right lawmakers have called for ending the same-sex-marriage protections derived from the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and a possible White House candidate, said last weekend the decision was “clearly wrong.”
But other Republicans tamped down that talk, citing Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in which he wrote that ending abortion protections should not be viewed as setting precedent for upending other rights.
House lawmakers debated passionately for close to an hour, but top House Republicans — including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and his top deputies — were absent from the debate Tuesday.
In a rare move, McCarthy and other top Republicans decided not to press their members — or “whip” the vote — to vote against the marriage protections, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday.
Public attitudes on same-sex marriage have shifted dramatically in recent years. A decade ago, the issue divided Democrats, who were apprehensive about being seen as too liberal. But now 70% of the broader public supports same-sex-marriage rights, according to the most recent Gallup poll on the issue.
The surprise vote Tuesday comes as Pelosi has promised to hold a series of votes on hot-button issues that Thomas indicated could be decided by the court.
In his concurring opinion, Thomas did not mention the landmark Loving v. Virginia case, which legalized interracial marriage decades ago. But others, including actor Samuel L. Jackson, have questioned whether that right could be overturned as well.
“He didn’t mention interracial marriage, but it’s on the same theory,” said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. “Of course he’s involved in an interracial marriage; he wouldn’t be married to [Ginni Thomas] but for that Loving decision.”
But even that issue has garnered a surprising amount of attention recently. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said in March that interracial marriage should be decided by each state. Following an uproar, he later explained that he did not want to ban interracial marriage.
Republicans show political evolution with same-sex marriage vote
Emily Brooks
Tue, July 19, 2022
A vote on codifying federal protections for same-sex marriage demonstrated a sharp political evolution for Republicans on the issue over the last decade, with nearly four dozen House GOP members voting in favor of the legislation.
The House Republican Conference gave members breathing room by not whipping votes against the bill, which Democrats brought up in response to concerns about the Supreme Court potentially reversing course on the case that protected the right for same-sex couples to marry
Titled the Respect for Marriage Act, the bill would also repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage for federal purposes as being between one man and one woman.
“I’m sure we’ll probably be split” on the bill, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said of the conference on Tuesday morning, noting that he does not formally whip the conference for or against most bills.
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), vice chairman of the House GOP conference, said that the whip team communicated to members that the vote was “a matter of personal conscience.”
In the end, 47 House Republicans voted for the bill, including two members of House GOP leadership: Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer (Minn.).
“It’s the right vote, and I’m proud to vote for it,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.).
Just a decade ago, the 2012 national Republican Party platform asserted support for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
The vote also cemented an evolution for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who expressed opposition to same-sex marriage in 2013 despite her sister Mary being married to another woman. Cheney expressed regret for that position in an interview last year.
The number of House GOP votes, accounting for about a fifth of the conference, bodes well for the legislation’s chance of passing in the Senate, where it would need at least 10 Republican votes to pass. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Monday expressed optimism about the bill’s chances of reaching the 60-vote threshold necessary to pass in the chamber.
The bill was a response to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade. Thomas suggested the court “reconsider” its substantive due process precedents — including in the case that legalized same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges.
Republicans countered that the majority opinion in Dobbs said that its overturning Roe should not cast doubt on precedents like Obergefell. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said on the House floor that the bill was a “further effort to intimidate the Court.”
Others, like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), said they were against the bill because they think recognition of same-sex marriage should be left up to the states.
Several Republicans, including Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), expressed hesitation on Tuesday morning about voting for the bill due to the political maneuvering of Democrats and the speediness with which it was brought to a vote without going through committees. But later on Tuesday evening, they voted for it.
Bacon said that he thinks many Republicans have softened on the issue of same-sex marriage. His own decision on how to vote on the bill was a “little bit of a tug-of-war” due to his religious convictions, but weighed that against the fact that same-sex marriage had been legal nationally for seven years, and that the country is not going to go backwards.
“I have brothers who are gay,” Bacon said. “I have a view that people have a right to live their lives the way they want.”
The Log Cabin Republicans, a group representing LGBT conservatives, said that Democrats’ aim to get Republicans on the record on the issue was a reason to vote for the bill rather than against it.
“Democrats, desperate to deflect from the disastrous leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration, are trying to use this election year vote to paint the GOP as out of step with the rest of the country,” Log Cabin Republicans President Charles Moran said in a statement. “There are critical fights to be had in the coming months on issues like the Left’s assault on Title IX and gender identity lessons in kindergarten classrooms, but Republican voters increasingly agree marriage equality is not one of them.”
Support for same-sex marriage among U.S. adults reached 71 percent in a May 2022 Gallup poll, the highest percentage since the company started measuring support for it in 1996. Gallup found that a majority, 55 percent, of Republicans supported same-sex marriage in 2021.
Weekly churchgoers are the primary demographic likely to oppose same-sex marriage, Gallup found, with 58 percent in that group opposed.
That religious segment is still present among GOP members and their voter base.
In 2019 and 2020, former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) was censured by some local GOP committees, which his office at the time said was retaliation against him officiating a same-sex wedding.
The congressman who replaced Riggleman, Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), voted against the bill.
“I’m a biblical conservative, I believe in God’s definition of marriage. And, you know, God’s perfect design is one man for one woman for a lifetime,” Good said. “I don’t think the Supreme Court should have tried to make law on that issue.”
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