The House of Representatives passed the Respect for Marriage Act on Thursday, which will federally recognize any marriage between two people regardless of their “sex, race, ethnicity or national origin.”
The House first passed a version of the legislation this summer, sending it to the Senate, where a bipartisan group of senators added a religious liberty amendment to convince hesitant Republicans to back it. The bill passed the Senate last week with bipartisan support. Thursday’s vote in the lower chamber was to agree to the Senate’s modifications.
The bill, which passed on Thursday 258-169, with one member voting “present,” now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
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The legislation repeals the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 that defined marriage as between one man and one woman and codifies the precedent set in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Following the court overturning the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade in June, anxiety spiked among Democrats over the right to same-sex marriage and interracial marriage, which was also made legal through court decisions rather than legislation.
“When the right-wing Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade and subverted reproductive freedom in this country, House Democrats jumped into action,” Minority Leader-elect Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a Tuesday press conference. “We voted to protect the right to abortion, the right to access birth control, the right to travel across state lines to receive healthcare, and the right to marry who you love. We acted to stop the Republican extremism that has led women and families around this country to worry about their future.”
The bill ensures that legal unions between people of the same sex or different races would still be recognized by the federal government if the Supreme Court reversed course on Obergefell.
Thirty-nine House Republicans supported the Respect for Marriage Act on Thursday, eight fewer than the number who voted for it over the summer. In the Senate, 12 Republicans joined all 50 Democrats to support it after centrist Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Susan Collins (R-ME), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) drafted an amendment to protect religious organizations from having to violate their beliefs and affirming the right to conscience.
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However, some conservative policy groups have argued it doesn’t go far enough, with the Family Research Council saying the amendment “provides no meaningful, affirmative, or enforceable shield of protection to those people and entities already being attacked for their belief in natural marriage.”
The legislation was initially scheduled for a vote on Tuesday but got pushed back amid a busy lame-duck session that includes must-pass spending bills, including the National Defense Authorization Act and potentially a yearlong omnibus spending bill.
