The Senate is set to vote Tuesday on the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would codify the right to same-sex marriage nationwide. The legislation is expected to pass, with a dozen Republicans joining Democrats to support it. These Republicans ought to reconsider and vow not to vote for the bill until it is amended to include robust religious liberty protections.
As it stands, the Respect for Marriage Act includes woefully insufficient protections for the rights of religious objectors, as I wrote earlier this month. For starters, the Baldwin amendment’s protections apply only to “nonprofit organizations” that conscientiously object to providing “services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage.” It says nothing of people, for-profit businesses, or religious adoption agencies and makes no guarantee that nonprofit groups’ tax-exempt status will be safe from government retaliation.
At the very least, each of these problems must be addressed before the Senate passes this bill.
TOM BRADY CHOSE FOOTBALL OVER FAMILY AND LOST
There are three amendments to the Respect for Marriage Act that would do just that. The first, from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), would prohibit the federal government from “negating the tax-exempt status of faith-based nonprofit organizations or the deductibility of donations made to them — or from withholding benefits or grants for which they otherwise would qualify,” as my colleague Quin Hillyer put it earlier this week.
The second is from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who pointed out that the most direct threat to religious liberty in the Respect for Marriage Act is the private right to action it creates for “any person who is harmed” by any entity operating “under color of state law” that does not recognize a marriage recognized by the state in which it took place. In other words, the bill expressly empowers people to sue religious organizations, businesses, and people who do not wish to recognize or celebrate same-sex marriage. Its phrasing is intentionally vague, Rubio said, and would open up religious people to endless legal harassment, the likes of which Colorado baker Jack Phillips has been fighting for a decade. To prevent this from happening, Rubio’s amendment would strike the private right to action from the bill altogether.
Lastly, Sen. James Lankford’s (R-OK) amendment would protect religious people and entities from government retaliation by prohibiting the government from denying or altering “any benefit, status, or right (including tax-exempt status, tax treatment, educational funding, or a grant, contract, agreement, guarantee, loan, scholarship, license, certification, accreditation, claim, or defense)” because of a person or entity’s beliefs about marriage.
A vote for each of these amendments should be a no-brainer, especially for the 12 Republican supporters who also claim to support religious liberty. Whether they’re willing to stand by that commitment in the face of cultural opposition remains to be seen.
