Same-sex marriage law splits US Congress

Created: 2022-07-20 03:36

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, at the Pride March in San Francisco.

She and her colleagues want to protect the right to same-sex marriage nationwide - but the bill has little chance in the Senate.

© Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle/AP/dpa

A number of rights are not protected by law in the United States, but have been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court.

Because the judges can change this, the Democrats want to forestall them.

WASHINGTON - The US House of Representatives has voted to protect the right to same-sex marriage in federal law.

A corresponding draft law was passed on Tuesday by a non-partisan vote of 267 to 157.

All dissenting votes came from Republicans - although 47 Republican MPs also voted in favor.

Nevertheless, the project does not have a great chance in the Senate due to the tighter majority.

The background to the vote is the recent decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn abortion rights.

Since this right is not protected by federal law, the states can now enact sweeping restrictions and prohibitions.

This has already happened in numerous states.

Abortion rights already overturned

In their attempt to enshrine the right to same-sex marriage into federal law, lawmakers want to prevent that right from being overturned in a manner similar to abortion rights.

With a judgment (Obergefell v. Hodges) in 2015, the court declared the right to same-sex marriage to be covered by the US Constitution.

But the court now has a clear right-wing conservative majority - and with it it could overturn this and other decisions again.

If that happens and there is no federal law to the contrary, states could refuse to recognize same-sex marriage.

The law is also intended to protect marriages between people of different ethnicities.

A statement by the arch-conservative judge Clarence Thomas, which he had published in the course of the abortion verdict, had recently triggered great horror.

He wrote that decisions enshrining the right to contraception, same-sex marriage, or sex between same-sex partners also deserve scrutiny.

He also explicitly mentioned the case of Obergefell v.

Hodges.

The remaining conservative judges emphasized that the current verdict on abortion does not call these precedents into question.

But many people in the US fear that there could also be a change of heart at the Supreme Court.

Federal law keeps failing

In addition, a 1996 federal law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman and provides other restrictions.

It was signed by then-Democratic US President Bill Clinton.

With judgments of the Supreme Court - such as Obergefell v.

Hodges - this law is de facto repealed.

For years, however, lawmakers have been trying to pass a federal law that would establish the right to same-sex marriage, thereby repealing the 1996 law once and for all.

So far they have always failed.

The odds aren't particularly good this time either.

It is unlikely that the draft will also pass the Senate.

There, the Democrats only have a wafer-thin majority and are dependent on the votes of the Republicans for numerous projects in order to even bring a law to a vote.

It was also unclear when the Senate would even deal with the draft.

Democratic US President Joe Biden had made it clear that he supported the bill.

Just last week, the House of Representatives passed legislation protecting abortion rights.

This draft is likely to fail in the Senate.

dpa