Respect for Marriage Act wins final passage in the U.S. Senate; returns to U.S. House

A bill that would final­ly repeal the so-called “Defense of Mar­riage” Act has mirac­u­lous­ly made it out of the Unit­ed States Sen­ate and will soon be land­ing on Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law fol­low­ing a bipar­ti­san vote on final pas­sage that came less than a month after Elec­tion Day.

The bill has a long his­to­ry, as its Wikipedia entry notes:

Its first ver­sion in 2009 was sup­port­ed by for­mer Repub­li­can U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bob Barr, the orig­i­nal spon­sor of DOMA, and for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton, who signed DOMA in 1996. The admin­is­tra­tion of Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma also sup­port­ed RFMA. Hav­ing been intro­duced in sev­er­al pre­vi­ous Con­gress­es, anoth­er iter­a­tion of the pro­pos­al was put forth in the 114th Con­gress in both the House and the Sen­ate in Jan­u­ary 2015.

The cur­rent ver­sion of the Respect for Mar­riage Act is H.R. 8404. It passed the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives back in the sum­mer, but like many bills approved by the House, it has been held up in the Senate.

Not any­more, thankfully.

The roll call on final pas­sage of H.R. 8404 from the Pacif­ic North­west mir­rored the roll call on invok­ing clo­ture from ear­li­er this month:

Vot­ing Yea to Cod­i­fy Mar­riage Equal­i­ty: Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell (WA), Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (OR), Jon Tester (MT); Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Lisa Murkows­ki and Dan Sul­li­van (AK)

Vot­ing Nay Against Mar­riage Equal­i­ty: Sen­a­tors Mike Crapo and Jim Risch (ID), Steve Daines (MT)

A total of 61 sen­a­tors vot­ed yea and 36 vot­ed nay. 3 did not vote.

The twelve Repub­li­cans vot­ing yea were:

• Roy Blunt of Missouri
• Richard Burr of North Carolina
• Shelly Moore Capi­to of West Virginia
• Susan Collins of Maine
• Joni Ernst of Iowa
• Cyn­thia Lum­mis of Wyoming
• Lisa Murkows­ki of Alaska
• Rob Port­man of Ohio
• Mitt Rom­ney of Utah
• Dan Sul­li­van of Alaska
• Thom Tillis of North Carolina
• Todd Young of Indiana

Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Ben Sasse of Nebras­ka and Pat Toomey of Penn­syl­va­nia missed the vote, as did Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Raphael Warnock of Geor­gia, who is home cam­paign­ing ahead of the Decem­ber 6th runoff.

All present Demo­c­ra­t­ic and inde­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed yea.

“With today’s bipar­ti­san Sen­ate pas­sage of the Respect for Mar­riage Act, the Unit­ed States is on the brink of reaf­firm­ing a fun­da­men­tal truth: love is love, and Amer­i­cans should have the right to mar­ry the per­son they love,” said Pres­i­dent Joe Biden in a cel­e­bra­to­ry state­ment pro­vid­ed by the White House.

“For mil­lions of Amer­i­cans, this leg­is­la­tion will safe­guard the rights and pro­tec­tions to which LGBTQI+ and inter­ra­cial cou­ples and their chil­dren are enti­tled. It will also ensure that, for gen­er­a­tions to fol­low, LGBTQI+ youth will grow up know­ing that they, too, can lead full, hap­py lives and build fam­i­lies of their own.”

“Impor­tant­ly, the Senate’s pas­sage of the Respect for Mar­riage Act is a bipar­ti­san achieve­ment. I’m grate­ful to the deter­mined Mem­bers of Con­gress — espe­cial­ly Sen­a­tors Bald­win, Collins, Port­man, Sine­ma, Tillis, and Fein­stein — whose lead­er­ship has under­scored that Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats togeth­er sup­port the essen­tial right of LGBTQI+ and inter­ra­cial cou­ples to mar­ry. I look for­ward to wel­com­ing them at the White House after the House pass­es this leg­is­la­tion and sends it to my desk, where I will prompt­ly and proud­ly sign it into law.”

“Today, thanks to the hard work of Major­i­ty Leader Schumer, Speak­er Pelosi, and bipar­ti­san col­leagues, the Respect for Mar­riage Act is final­ly on its way to becom­ing law,” said Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Harris.

“I had the hon­or to per­form some of our nation’s first same sex mar­riages at San Fran­cis­co City Hall in 2004, where cou­ples cel­e­brat­ed not only a joy­ful union, but the pro­tec­tion and respect of fun­da­men­tal human rights.”

“The right to start a fam­i­ly and raise chil­dren. The right to be who you are, open­ly and proud­ly. The right to sup­port the per­son you love, whether at a hos­pi­tal bed­side, a mil­i­tary deploy­ment cer­e­mo­ny, or apply­ing for citizenship.”

“Our Admin­is­tra­tion stands for the fun­da­men­tal right to mar­ry the per­son you love and live free from dis­crim­i­na­tion. The Respect for Mar­riage Act ulti­mate­ly stands for a sim­ple prin­ci­ple: all Amer­i­cans are equal and their gov­ern­ment should treat them that way. Today, we are one step clos­er to achiev­ing that ide­al with pride.”

“By pass­ing the Respect for Mar­riage Act, the Sen­ate has reaf­firmed the right for all Amer­i­cans to mar­ry the per­son they love,” said Ore­gon’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden. “At the heart of mar­riage equal­i­ty is the fun­da­men­tal right to pri­va­cy. It’s why I ran in sup­port of same-sex mar­riage dur­ing my 1996 Sen­ate cam­paign, and after becom­ing the first mem­ber of the Sen­ate to open­ly sup­port mar­riage equal­i­ty, it’s why I vot­ed against the cru­el and egre­gious Defense of Mar­riage Act.”

“While mar­riage equal­i­ty is the law of the land thanks to land­mark Supreme Court cas­es like Oberge­fell and Lov­ing v. Vir­gi­nia, Con­gress can­not take any mod­ern legal prece­dent for grant­ed after the over­turn­ing of Roe.”

“It has an oblig­a­tion to pro­tect the indi­vid­ual rights of all Amer­i­cans from a far-right Supreme Court major­i­ty deter­mined to turn the clock back by decades. And today Con­gress is one step clos­er to cod­i­fy­ing these rights into law.”

“Today’s vote is espe­cial­ly impor­tant with the fright­en­ing rise of hate speech and vio­lence against LGBTQ Amer­i­cans. There is no place for hate or intol­er­ance in Amer­i­ca. I stand with the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty, and I’m proud to once again vote for equal­i­ty and freedom.”

“There should be no doubt that every­one should have their mar­riages rec­og­nized, but after Roe v. Wade was over­turned, I heard from con­stituents across Wash­ing­ton state who were wor­ried that far-right Supreme Court Jus­tices would rip away their right to mar­ry who they love,” said Wash­ing­ton’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray. “That’s why this leg­is­la­tion mat­ters and, today, we took a mean­ing­ful step towards pro­tect­ing same-sex mar­riage at the fed­er­al level.”

“This fight is not over, though. Whether it is defend­ing the right to same-sex mar­riage for all, push­ing for same-sex vet­er­an cou­ples to have full access to spousal ben­e­fits, or fight­ing to pro­tect all LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als from being fired just for who they love or how they iden­ti­fy — I will con­tin­ue to work to make equal­i­ty a real­i­ty. I am proud to be an advo­cate for Wash­ing­ton state’s LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate and look for­ward to Pres­i­dent Biden sign­ing this impor­tant piece of leg­is­la­tion into law.”

“Nobody should face the gut-wrench­ing pit in their stom­ach with the pos­si­bil­i­ty that some polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed Supreme Court jus­tices might sud­den­ly tell them that their mar­riage is no longer rec­og­nized,” said Sen­a­tor Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

“But the right-wing activist jus­tices have made clear they are eager to inject their pref­er­ences into the most inti­mate parts of our lives and have specif­i­cal­ly threat­ened Amer­i­cans’ marriages.”

“So bipar­ti­san majori­ties in Con­gress are step­ping in. Gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­cans have marched, vot­ed, orga­nized, and raised their voic­es to move us clos­er to a more per­fect union with free­dom and equal­i­ty for all.”

“My col­leagues and I – on both sides of the aisle – have the respon­si­bil­i­ty to not just fur­ther leg­is­la­tion to ensure this real­i­ty for all Amer­i­cans, but to do all we can to pro­tect the exist­ing rights that so many Amer­i­cans rely on. The right to mar­ry the per­son you love, regard­less of gen­der or race, should not be up for debate.”

“Ore­gon pro­tects mar­riage equal­i­ty for those who call this great state home, and with the pas­sage of the Respect for Mar­riage Act, these rights will now be pro­tect­ed for all Amer­i­cans in every cor­ner of every state of our coun­try. Pro­tect­ing same-sex and inter­ra­cial mar­riage means the right to love and mar­ry whomev­er you choose will be pro­tect­ed regard­less of the whims of an extrem­ist Supreme Court.”

“While our work here in D.C. is not over, and we need to pass the Equal­i­ty Act and end all forms of anti-LGBTQ+ dis­crim­i­na­tion, let us not miss this oppor­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate. Love wins!”