U.S. Congress tries to protect same-sex marriages

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that would protect same-sex and interracial marriages at the federal level. All Democratic members of the House of Representatives and a quarter of Republican congressmen voted for the bill.

The law, officially called the “Respect for Marriage Act,” was initiated by Democratic lawmakers after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned its 50-year-old decision on the constitutionality of abortion. Critics of the court’s decision fear that in the near future the Supreme Court, which is overwhelmingly made up of conservative judges, may reconsider the decisions that once legalized same-sex and interracial marriages as well.

Although the Supreme Court emphasized in its abortion decision that the decision does not mean it intends to review other decisions of its predecessors, supporters of the bill say that the right to marry needs legislative protection. They cite remarks by some members of the Supreme Court about their willingness to reconsider the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. The new bill repeals the “Defense of Marriage Act,” which defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman, a law ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2015, and introduces additional protections for same-sex and interracial marriages. The constitutionality of interracial marriage was also once upheld by the Supreme Court.

Whether the bill will gain support in the Senate is unknown. It requires at least ten votes from Republican senators to be approved. Some Republican senators are calling the attempt to pass the new law a political stunt by Democrats in advance of this fall’s midterm congressional elections. According to them, there is no threat to same-sex or interracial marriage in the United States.