The vote in the Senate on the Law of Respect for Marriage that codifies same-sex marriage rights will be delayed until after the November 2022 election, Sen. Tammy Baldwin said Wednesday.
Baldwin is the lead sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill in the Senate and said a vote, originally scheduled for Monday, would not take place until after the election in November.
“I’m still very confident the bill will pass, but we’ll get to it later, after the election,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, said after a Democratic caucus luncheon on Thursday, according to Politico.
The House of Representatives, in a vote of 267-157, has already approved the bill. The House bill codifies federal recognition of same-sex marriage and also strengthens other marriage protections.
This bill arose after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sparking fears that the court may target same-sex marriage in the future.
Without federal codification from Congress, the Supreme Court could overrule Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that legalized same-sex marriages, because abortion rights and same-sex marriage rights were based on the same due process privacy rights.
Writing in the court’s Roe opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas urged the court to also consider new rulings on same-sex marriage, the right to engage in private consensual sexual acts and contraception.
The cases Justice Thomas mentioned are Griswold vs. Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court ruling that married couples have the right to obtain contraception; Lawrence v. Texas, that in 2003 it established the right to engage in private sexual acts; and the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodge, who said that there is a right to same-sex marriage.
According to The Hill, a bipartisan group of negotiators met Thursday to decide whether or not to publish the text of an amendment to the bill that addresses Republican concerns that churches might be at legal risk if same-sex marriage were codified.
A New Data for Progress poll found that most voters support passage of this bill by a +29 point margin, including Democrats by a +62 point margin and Independents by a +42 point margin. .
Source: La Opinion
