House PASSES bill to protect same-sex marriage nationwide

The House passed legislation Thursday morning 258-169 that will ensure federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriage in one of the final votes with Nancy Pelosi serving as House Speaker. 

Only 39 Republicans in the lower chamber joined all 219 Democratic members in voting to pass the bill. One Republican representative voted ‘present’, meaning they are declining to issue a ‘yay’ or ‘nay’, and four were marked as ‘no votes.’ 

Democrats moved to get the legislation quickly through Congress after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas warned there was a chance of overturning the decision protecting same-sex marriage. 

President Joe Biden will now receive the final version of the legislation for its signature into law.

Pelosi hesitated and appeared to get choked up when declaring that the bill passed the House. 

‘I was emotional, I’m sorry,’ she said after banging the gavel several times on the desk.

The Respect for Marriage Act won Senate approval last month and with a 61-36 vote and was passed back down to the House to adopt the changes they made to the bill. While 12 Republicans joined 49 Democrats in supporting the bill, most of the upper chamber’s GOP members voted against the legislation. 

Nancy Pelosi banged her House Speaker’s gavel for one of the final times on Thursday as she got ’emotional’ when announcing the House adopted the final version of a bill that codifies same-sex marriage nationwide

The final version of Respect for Marriage Act passed the House on Thursday morning in a 258-169 vote after passing the Senate last month – 39 Republicans joined all Democrats in voting for its passage

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The measure came to fruition out of concern by mostly Democrats that the 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court could reverse protections for same-sex couples to legally marry after it overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that protected abortion at the federal level.

The Roe v. Wade ruling led to calls from activists to codify into federal law same-sex marriage.

The legislation, written by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, is designed to act as a backstop for the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in the Obergefell v. Hodges case.

It allows federal government and states to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages as long as they were legal in the states where they were performed. The bill would not, however, bar states from blocking same-sex or interracial marriages in the future if the Supreme Court rules they can do so.

The bill also makes concessions for religious groups and institutions that do not support same-sex marriages.

Fears over the Supreme Court making a ruling that could strip federal protections for same-sex marriage were only heightened with the Roe v. Wade overturned. 

The legislation will go to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature

In a concurring opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas said that the high court should reconsider other due process opinions – like the ones protecting same-sex relationships, marriage equality and access to contraceptives.

‘Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents,’ Thomas wrote in his June opinion, quoting a 2020 Supreme Court decision.

‘After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated,’ he added.

‘[W]e would need to decide important antecedent questions, including whether the privileges or immunities clause protects any rights that are not enumerated in the Constitution and, if so, how to identify those rights.’

Thomas is the only justice of the six conservatives on the bench wh has called for the Supreme Court to reconsider other precedents related to due process.

Uncertainty over the future of same-sex marriage rights was only heightened when conservatives on the Supreme Court signaled support earlier this week for a business owner who doesn’t want to provide her service to same-sex couples.

Lorie Smith, a Colorado-based web designer, opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds. She proactively sued the state in 2016 so she would not need to go against her religious beliefs by providing services to same-sex couples. Smith was seeking exemptions for a Colorado law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Smith, 38, claims her free speech right tops this state statute and allows her to reject request from same-sex couples.

The White House says freedom of speech and and anti-discrimination laws can ‘coexist.’

‘For decades, nondiscrimination public accommodations laws have coexisted with the First Amendment,’ President Joe Biden’s Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday.

Conservative justices on the Supreme Court appear sympathetic toward Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer in Colorado who is refusing to provide services to same-sex couples on religious grounds. Pictured: Smith appeared outside the Supreme Court after two hours of oral arguments in her case on Monday, December 5

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