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Let’s start with the positive: Republicans and Democrats are coming together to protect same-sex The Supreme Court has ruled that marriage is legal.
Respect for Marriage Act The codification of marriages came into being amid fears among Democrats that the same conservative majority at the Supreme Court which took away the right for abortion would also target same-sex married couples in the future.
The Senate approved Tuesday the version that defeated a filibuster. To limit debate and get to a final vote, twelve Republican senators voted in support of Democrats across the nation before Thanksgiving.
RELATED: Meet the 12 Republicans who voted for the Respect for Marriage Act
The bill will then be sent to the House for approval, before President Joe Biden can make it law.
There is also a lot of fine print.
First, the bill doesn’t require that all states allow same-sex marriage. This is the current reality, even though it was in 2015 Obergefell/Hodges. The Respect for Marriage Act, which would require both the federal government as well as the states, to recognize marriages in legal places if Obergefell was overturned by the Supreme Court.
There are exceptions for religious reasons. Republican supporters have highlighted the provisions in the Senate version that prevent religious and nonprofit organizations from supporting same-sex marriages.
“I will be supporting the substitute amendment because it will ensure our religious freedoms are upheld and protected, one of the bedrocks of our democracy,” said West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito in a statement after helping break the filibuster.
It took over a year of hard work to bring in 10 Republicans.
Right now, the only way to know is academic. This bill is being passed only in the event that the Supreme Court, now a conservative court, would revisit Obergefell V. Hodges, which established a national right for married same-sex couples to marry.
Two of the justices who voted in favor of that ruling have been replaced by Republican-appointed conservatives, which means that if the case were heard today, there’s a real likelihood it would be decided differently.
While Justice Samuel Alito seemed to want to wall off the abortion rights precedent upended by the Supreme Court earlier this year, CNN’s Ariane de Vogue has written about how the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could affect issues like marriage. Read her story.
It is almost impossible to believe that less than a generation ago, Republicans and Democrats, along with a Democratic president in the ’90s, worked together to protect the “institution of marriage” from same-sex unions.
Today, it’s Republicans and Democrats, along with a Democratic president, working together to protect same-sex marriage from a government institution.
In that period, support for same-sex marital relationships grew from 25% in the year before the Defense of Marriage Act was enacted to 71% according to Gallup polling.
This issue played a part in many US elections, including the one just completed.
Here’s a brief history of marriage equality playing a role in prior Election years:
After Bill Clinton’s refusal to allow gay people openly to serve in the military, 1996 saw Republican majorities in both the Senate and the House sense a political opportunity.
They were also trying ahead of a Hawaii court’s decision that could have legalized gay marriage. Republicans introduced the Defense of Marriage Act to protect same-sex marriages from being illegally recognized in other states. Also known as DOMA.
It made marriage between one man, one woman legal and allowed states to deny recognition of marriages. It also Federal benefits for married couples of the same sex were withheld. 2013: A part of DOMA It was found unconstitutional.
DOMA received broad support. Democrats like the former-Sen. Biden voted in favor of the bill. Current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and many other Democrats whose names you’d recognize, were among the 342 who voted for the bill in the House.
Current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was among the 67 members to vote “no,” along with then-Rep. Steve Gunderson, who at the time was the House’s only out gay Republican.
2004 Smart politics was to place anti-gay marriage amendments on the ballots of key states such as Ohio. It helped George W. Bush reelect himself to the White House, and it also allowed the GOP to gain seats in Congress.
Bush supported a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, opposed same-sex married at the time.
2008 Obama continued to oppose marriage equality even though his party was more openly supporting it.
More recently, he wrote and stated that he personally supports same-sex marriage. rights. David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign aide, wrote that Obama made a deliberate decision to oppose gay marriage.
“He grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union,’” Axelrod wrote in a memoir.
2012 Obama took the advice of Vice President Biden and officially addressed the issue. He stated that he now supports marriage equality. It was a huge victory. moment.
A few years later in 2015, the Supreme Court ruled nationwide in favor of same-sex marital.
“I’m fine with it,” Trump said in 2016 during an interview with “60 Minutes.”
He’d go on to brag about being a champion for gay rights, although many LGBTQ activists would disagree.
The politicians of the ’90s have largely evolved with the country.
This summer, however, one of the Supreme Court’s relics from the ’90s, Justice Clarence Thomas, questioned the 2015 marriage decision he opposed. Republicans and Democrats have reunited to try and undo the 1996 marriage decision and guarantee that marriage is a legal right for all Americans.