Respect for Marriage Act

Respect for Marriage Act, U.S. federal legislation, passed by Congress in December 2022, that defines marriage, for the purposes of federal law, as a legal union between two individuals that is valid in the U.S. state, territory, or possession in which it was entered into. In addition, the Respect for Marriage Act requires every U.S. state, territory, or possession to recognize the validity of same-sex and interracial (or interethnic) marriages duly performed in any other U.S. jurisdiction. The act formally repealed the federal Defense of Marriage Act (1996), which had defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman and had permitted states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. The Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor (2013), and state bans on same-sex marriage and on recognizing same-sex marriages duly performed in other jurisdictions were declared unconstitutional by the Court in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). State prohibitions of interracial marriages had been declared unconstitutional by the Court in Loving v. Virginia (1967).

The Respect for Marriage Act was introduced in the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives in July 2022 in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling the previous month in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which had overturned the Court’s historic decisions in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), thereby eliminating the constitutional right of women to obtain an abortion. In Dobbs the Court’s majority argued that the right to obtain an abortion was not guaranteed by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as the Roe and Casey Courts had held, because it did not meet the criteria established in Court precedents for inclusion in the category of substantive, as opposed to merely procedural, rights protected under the due process clause. Although such criteria also did not apply to other substantive due process rights relating to sex and marriage that the Court had recognized in earlier decisions, the majority insisted that its ruling applied only to the constitutional right to abortion. In his opinion concurring with the majority, however, Justice Clarence Thomas declared that rulings that had established other sex- and marriage-related rights, including Obergefell, should also be overturned, because, in his view, the legal doctrine of substantive due process was incoherent.

Fearing that the constitutional rights to same-sex and interracial marriage might one day be eliminated by an ultraconservative Supreme Court, a bipartisan House majority sought to partially codify those rights in the Respect for Marriage Act. If the Court were to rule that same-sex or interracial marriage rights were not guaranteed by the Constitution, the act would not prevent any state from banning same-sex or interracial marriages within its jurisdiction; nevertheless, any state that adopted such a ban would have to treat as valid same-sex or interracial marriages performed in other states. The bill passed the House on a vote of 267 to 157 on July 19, 2022. After a monthslong effort to secure support for the bill from a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Democratic and Republican senators reached agreement on an amendment to the bill that explicitly exempts religious institutions from the obligation to recognize same-sex unions. The amendment stated that “Nothing in this Act, or any amendment made by this Act, shall be construed to diminish or abrogate a religious liberty or conscience protection” and that “nonprofit religious organizations…shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage.” The amended version of the bill passed the Senate on November 29, and the House approved the Senate’s version on December 8. The Respect for Marriage Act was then sent to Democratic Pres. Joe Biden, who signed it into law on December 13.

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