Senate poised to pass bill to protect same-sex, interracial marriages

Source: Washington Post

Senate poised to pass bill to protect same-sex, interracial marriages

By Amy B Wang
Updated November 29, 2022 at 1:44 p.m. EST|Published November 29, 2022 at 12:19 p.m. EST

The Senate is poised Tuesday to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, which would enshrine marriage equality into federal law, granting protections to same-sex and interracial couples.

Enough senators are expected to support the bill — which includes a bipartisan amendment that clarifies protections for religious liberties — for it to pass in a vote scheduled for late Tuesday afternoon. In a procedural vote Monday, the Senate advanced the bill, 61 to 35, surpassing the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. If the Senate passes the bill, the amended version would return to the House for another vote before it could go to President Biden to sign into law.

The Respect for Marriage Act would not force states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples but would require that people be considered married in any state as long as the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed. The bill also would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and allowed states to decline to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. That law has remained on the books despite being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry.

Democrats have warned since June that federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages, as well as other rights, could be at risk after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which for nearly 50 years had guaranteed the right to an abortion in the United States.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/29/respect-for-marriage-act-senate-vote/

Non-paywalled link: https://wapo.st/3ViPqEQ

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Same-Sex Marriage Bill on Track to Pass Senate After Bipartisan Breakthrough (New York Times)