Legislation that ensures same-sex and interracial marriages are recognized as legal unions appears headed for final approval and President Joe Biden’s...
What’s in the bill?
For interracial couples in the US, the right to marry has been recognized much longer. A 1960s-era Supreme Court decision, Loving vs. Virginia, invalidated state laws that banned marriages between people of different races. The statements “understandably terrified a lot of people” and gave new momentum to the Respect for Marriage Act, said Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University.
The vote reflected an overall change in the public’s views, Davidson said. At one point, most people in the U.S. opposed same-sex marriage. But in a June Gallup poll, 71% of U.S. adults said same-sex unions should be valid under the law. The practical effect of that would be that some people couldn’t get married in their own states, but all same-sex marriages would continue to be recognized and eligible for the legal benefits of marriage.
After the Senate approved the measure Tuesday, an official from Alliance Defending Freedom criticized it as jeopardizing the religious freedom of millions of Americans. Cruz and Texas Sen. John Cornyn also signed onto an amendment by Utah Sen. Mike Lee, that increased religious liberty protections. Before the final senate vote, they considered the Lee amendment along with two other GOP-backed amendments. All three failed.
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