Senate passes historic same-sex marriage legislation

Bipartisan legislation to protect same-sex marriages was approved by the Senate on Tuesday, which is a remarkable sign of changing national politics on the subject and a source of relief for the hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples who have wed since the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling making gay marriage legal nationwide.

The measure, which would make same-sex and interracial marriages legal under federal law, was adopted 61-36 on Tuesday, with 12 Republicans voting in favor. The law, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has been “a long time coming” and marks a step in the country’s “difficult but inevitable march towards greater equality.”

Democrats are pushing rapidly to deliver the law to the House and, eventually, to President Joe Biden’s desk while they still control both houses of Congress. Since the Supreme Court’s decision in June to reverse the constitutional right to an abortion—a decision that featured Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion suggesting same-sex marriage would also be in jeopardy—the measure has steadily gathered support. This summer, when 47 Republicans unexpectedly voted in favor of a House plan, bipartisan Senate deliberations gained momentum and fresh hope.

No state would be required under the law to permit same-sex marriage. However, if the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling from 2015 were to be reversed, states would be required to recognize all marriages that were lawful where they were conducted and safeguard present same-sex partnerships.

After years of vehement party disagreement on the subject, that is a startling bipartisan support and proof of cultural transformation.

By forcing states to recognize valid marriages regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity or national origin,” the law would also safeguard interracial unions.

As Democrats give up their two years of unified control in Washington, a new law legalizing same-sex weddings would be a significant gain for them. It would also be a huge victory for supporters who have been fighting for federal legislation for decades. It occurs at a time when the LGBTQ community has seen horrific assaults, including the shooting that occurred at a gay bar in Colorado last weekend that left five people dead and at least 17 wounded.

The new head of the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, Kelley Robinson, said, “Our community truly needs a victory; we have gone through a lot.” “I feel a feeling of comfort right now as a married LGBTQ person. My family and I are secure.

For many senators, the vote was also an emotional one. According to Schumer, Tuesday’s wedding of his daughter was “one of the best days of my life,” and he was wearing the tie he wore there. Moreover, he remembered the “harrowing discussion” he had with his daughter and her spouse in September 2020 when they learned of the passing of liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They questioned then, “Could our right to marriage be taken away?”

Roe v. Wade and the federal right to an abortion have now been overturned by the court, replacing Ginsburg with the conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, igniting concerns about Obergefell and other liberties upheld by the court. However, popular opinion has changed, with more than two-thirds of the population now supporting same-sex marriage.

Nevertheless, despite years of Republican resistance, Schumer noted that it was noteworthy that the Senate was even holding the discussion. It would have been difficult for any of us to see both sides discussing defending the rights of same-sex married couples ten years ago, he added.

After the Senate rejected three Republican amendments to defend the rights of religious organizations and others to continue to oppose such weddings, passage of the bill was finally achieved. Supporters of the measure stated that the changes weren’t required since the bill had already been changed to make it clear that it doesn’t impact existing legal rights of enterprises or ordinary citizens. To dispel far-right allegations that the measure would support polygamy, the bill would also make it explicit that a marriage is between two individuals.

The proposal has received backing from several religious organizations, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has been pleading with his fellow GOP senators to approve it for months. Some of the organizations participated in discussions on the bipartisan amendment.

According to Tillis, “They regard this as a step forward for religious freedom.”

This month, the Utah-based, almost 17 million-member religion released a statement stating that church theology will continue to see same-sex partnerships as being against God’s commands. However, it said that it would support same-sex couple rights provided that they did not interfere with religious organizations’ freedom to practice their own faiths.

The majority of Republicans continue to reject the bill, claiming it is unneeded and raising issues with religious liberty. Additionally, several conservative organizations intensified their criticism in recent weeks by urging Republican voters to change their ballots.

The vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, Roger Severino, recently argued against the bill in a blog post. “As I and others have argued for years, marriage is the exclusive, lifelong, conjugal union between one man and one woman, and any departure from that design hurts the indispensable goal of having every child raised in a stable home by the mom and dad who conceived him,” Severino wrote.

Democrats postponed discussion until after the November elections in an attempt to get the 10 Republican votes required to break a filibuster in the 50-50 Senate, thinking it would ease political pressure on GOP senators who could be on the fence.

Democrats eventually received the 12 Republican votes they needed.

Along with Tillis, Republican senators Rob Portman of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine have pushed their GOP colleagues to approve the plan. Republican Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Todd Young of Indiana, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Mitt Romney of Utah, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, and Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska also voted in favor of the bill in two test votes prior to its passage.

Before the vote, Lummis, one of the more conservative senators, spoke about her “fairly brutal self soul searching” that led her to support the legislation. She acknowledged that she agrees with her church’s teaching that a marriage must be between a man and a woman, but she added that the nation was founded on the principle of the separation of church and state.

By taking this action, Lummis said, “we do well, not by embracing or validating each other’s fervently held views, but by the simple act of tolerating them.”

In stark contrast to even a decade ago, when many Republicans vocally opposed same-sex marriages, the GOP is now showing increasing support for the issue.

The newly discovered openness of many Republicans on the subject, according to Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who is the first openly gay senator and has worked on issues relating to gay rights for almost forty years, reminds her of “the arc of the LBGTQ movement to begin with, in the early days when people weren’t out and people knew gay people by myths and stereotypes.”

According to Baldwin, the chief Senate negotiator on the bill, attitudes have changed as more people and families have gained visibility.

And legislation have gradually followed, she said. It’s history,