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You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Respect for Marriage, and Other Human Rights

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Respect for Marriage, and Other Human Rights

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And 47 Republicans voted *for* it. Now, as NBC News points out, we need at least 10 Repub Senators to find some human dignity:

The House passed the Respect For Marriage Act Tuesday to codify legal same-sex marriage nationwide, fearing that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will rescind the right after it overturned Roe v. Wade last month.

The vote was 267-157, with 47 Republicans supporting it.

The bill would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, enshrine legal same-sex marriage for the purposes of federal law, and add legal protections for married couples of the same sex…

House Democrats plan to vote later this week on a similar bill to codify the right to contraception, which was established by a more liberal Supreme Court in the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut ruling.

Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., who is openly gay, emphasized the importance of Congress stepping in to protect same-sex marriage rights. “Imagine telling the next generation, my generation, we no longer have the right to marry who we love. Congress can’t allow that to happen,” he said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the bill would “enshrine into law a fundamental freedom: the right to marry whomever you choose.”

“As radical justices and right-wing politicians continue their assault on our basic rights, Democrats believe that the government has no place between you and the person you love,” she said.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, blasted the legislation as “the latest installment of the Democrats’ campaign to attempt to intimidate the United States Supreme Court.”…

The legislation now goes to the Senate, where its prospects are uncertain, as it requires at least 10 Republican votes to defeat a filibuster. So far the same-sex marriage protections have only one GOP backer: Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

The proposal has put GOP senators in a bind, caught between their culturally conservative base, which opposes same-sex marriage, and a large majority of the country that wants it to remain legal…

As I said, when Massachusetts was the first state to legalize marriage equality, it’s amazing how quickly opposition ebbs when ‘normal’ voters discover how much the new law doesn’t change anything in their own lives (except for maybe making some of their family members, acquaintances, and neighbors inexplicably happier).


Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    sab

    Hmm. This will be a test for Rob Portman: family v think tank sinecure

    ETA He is rich already but he can always get richer

  2. 2.

    Scout211

    cnbc.com/2022/07/19/house-votes-on-same-sex-marriage-bill-after-supreme-court-roe-ruling.html

    Let’s hope Senator Durbin is right.

    Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Monday that he believes the bills protecting same-sex marriage and contraception can overcome the Senate’s 60-vote hurdle, NBC News reported. Some Republican senators gave noncommittal answers when asked by NBC if they would vote for the legislation.

    Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, meanwhile, said Sunday that the high court’s ruling to enshrine same-sex marriage was “clearly wrong.”

  3. 3.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Manu Raju @mkraju 6h

    Murkowski to me on gay marriage vote: “I have suggested to others that not only would I like to see Roe, Casey, and Griswold on contraception codified but I’ve also made clear my support for, for gay marriage years ago,” she said. “So I will look at what the House is doing.”

  5. 5.

    patrick II

    It seems Jim Jordan is confirming that the next Supreme Court’s privacy right target will be the institution of marriage.

  7. 7.

    Miss Bianca

    “The Democrats’ campaign to intimidate the Supreme Court”?! AH HA HA HA HA!

    This Jordan guy – what a card!

  9. 9.

    narya

    As I said, when Massachusetts was the first state to legalize marriage equality, it’s amazing how quickly opposition ebbs when ‘normal’ voters discover how much the new law doesn’t change anything in their own lives (except for maybe making some of their family members, acquaintances, and neighbors inexplicably happier).

    This. More people know someone who is openly LGBTQ; more people realize they’re related to someone who is LGBTQ. I know the cruelty is the point; I know the nut jobs will go on about it, but I [want to] believe that it’s more of a shrug for many more people at this point.

  10. 10.

    kindness

    House Democrats are doing exactly the right thing.  Chances are it’ll die in this Senate but then that will be used in the 2022 elections and I really do think the crazy right is going to be shocked to see how many of their flock they drove away.  They (Republicans & the Opus Dei Supreme Court) are completely overplaying their hand.  But because they all exist in a closed bubble and their base is going wild over it, they really don’t see it’s not playing well in the suburbs.

  12. 12.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    Republicans wouldn’t vote for the cure for cancer if it meant Dems getting some credit.

  13. 13.

    Dan B

    @patrick II: Jim Jordan who said nothing when three dozen or so young wrestlers were molested repeatedly.  Such a paragon of sexual virtue.

    /s  in case anyone was wondering.

  15. 15.

    Villago Delenda Est

    caught between their culturally conservative base, which opposes same-sex marriage, and a large majority of the country that wants it to remain legal

    Let’s get something straight. These people are not “culturally conservative”. They are neo-medievalists. They should be marched at gunpoint into Obama’s time machine and sent back to say 1250 to experience nasty, burtal, and short first hand. Oh and no return trip for them.

  17. 17.

    Dan B

    It was interesting that Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney was sitting behind Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Mondaire Jones.  Maloney is married and he and his husband are raising three kids.  The next step after ending their marriage is taking away the kids from their parents.  It’s a long shot but a rabidly obsessed minority can cause enormous damage.

  19. 19.

    Dan B

    I hadn’t heard Mondaire Jones speak before.  He was impressive.  He’s the sort of person, along with his simple clear story, that changes hearts and minds.

  20. 20.

    Roger Moore

     As I said, when Massachusetts was the first state to legalize marriage equality, it’s amazing how quickly opposition ebbs when ‘normal’ voters discover how much the new law doesn’t change anything in their own lives (except for maybe making some of their family members, acquaintances, and neighbors inexplicably happier).

    I suspect this is conservatives’ biggest fear of all: not that changing things will cause some great disaster but that it will have no real effect. They’ve been screaming for ages about how we can’t do this, that, or the other thing because it will bring an end to civilization as we know it. For them not just to lose the decision but to be proven to be completely wrong on the substance is an attack against conservatism as a political philosophy. If they were wrong that gay marriage would end civilization as we know it, what other ideas they’re spouting are equally wrong?

  21. 21.

    Steve in the ATL

    On I-75 near Dalton, Georgia is a billboard owned by a Bible thumping nut job.  The current iteration says JESUS IS LORD/EVERYONE  WILL CONFESS/EVEN [scare font] DEMOCRATS.

    MTG’s district, of course. This is why we can’t have nice things.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    @narya:

    I know the cruelty is the point; I know the nut jobs will go on about it, but I [want to] believe that it’s more of a shrug for many more people at this point.

    Honestly, I think it’s probably a relief to a lot of people.  Hating everyone has to be incredibly tiring, as well as forcing them to exclude from their lives people they might not want to have excluded.  Finding out those people are actually OK and they can stop hating them has to be good for the people who aren’t so passionately attached to the hate.

  23. 23.

    lowtechcyclist

    @patrick II:

    It seems Jim Jordan is confirming that the next Supreme Court’s privacy right target will be the institution of marriage.

    More than that, he’s confirming that they’re just a bunch of right-wing political hacks, changing the law whenever they want, to make it match up with their ideology.

    If they’re really just about calling balls and strikes, it’s no problem for them.  Marriage equality not protected by the Constitution? Ball. Marriage equality protected by Federal statute? Strike.

    That’s all there is to it if they see their job as being impartial umps, even if they interpret the Constitution differently than we do. No ‘intimidation’ at all.

    It’s only ‘intimidation’ if they view their job as making abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception illegal. And apparently that’s what Gym Jordan sees their job as.

  24. 24.

    lowtechcyclist

    @David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch:

    Republicans wouldn’t vote for the cure for cancer if it meant Dems getting some credit.

    Lord knows how many thousands of them got Covid to ‘own the libs.’  So that would be totally consistent with recent behavior.

  25. 25.

    Kropacetic

    @Roger Moore: If they were wrong that gay marriage would end civilization as we know it, what other ideas they’re spouting are equally wrong?

    But the thing is, the implied threat is that if we legalize gay marriage they will end society as we know it.

  27. 27.

    LeftCoastYankee

    “Jim Jordan made mouth sounds (and didn’t bite off his tongue)” is pretty much sufficient coverage of that ass.

  28. 28.

    Geminid

    I remember when the Senate voted to repeal the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and allow military service by openly gay people. That was in December, 2010, during the “lame duck” session. For all of the fierce debate beforehand, there was very little pushback afterwards. A few people wrung their hands and complained “but what about the poor chaplains?” but they shut up pretty quickly.

    I think only six Republican Senators voted to repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” They were from the Northeast or Midwest except for Richard Burr of North Carolina. I think Burr’s record is lousy in general, but I’ve always held that vote in his favor and now I’m curious to see how Burr votes on this bill.

  29. 29.

    Dan B

    @Steve in the ATL:  I just spoke with the new interim pastor at one of the biggest progressive Baptist churches in the Northwest.  He’s moved here from LA and a pastor friend of mine in LA recommended we meet so he’s coming to dinner next week.  I mentioned to him that 65% of congregations in the Seattle metro area are “Welcoming and Affirming” (of LGBTQ people) but that almost no one knows it.  The fearful fanatics are loud and the corporate media loves the old narrative that Christians are homophobic terrorists, or at least hostile.

    Right Wing evangelicals do not equal all Christians.

    Megaphones matter.

  32. 32.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Steve in the ATL: ​
     

    Big difference between “God loves you, and because God has loved me, I also love you” and “God’s gonna make you libs kneel before him, that’ll show you.”

  33. 33.

    Dan B

    @raven: I try to be polite but there is a strong strain of being “nice Christians” that keeps them invisible and keeps diminishing their numbers.  There are few who would stand up for their kind beliefs if the Evangelicals said Boo!

  34. 34.

    Dan B

    @lowtechcyclist: It was interesting to observe in my intro to Sociology class that the difference between believers in a Kind God and a Wrathful God mirrored the difference between toilet training styles: patient and congratulating success versus shaming and punishing.

    Everybody poops.

  35. 35.

    gene108

    Nobody in the Senate is required to invoke the filibuster for every damned little thing.

    They could just let this bill proceed with a majority vote to end debate and bring it up for a vote.

  36. 36.

    Don K

    @narya: I’ve been astounded over the years how my being gay (and now married) is a non-issue to my friends and family. I have a 90-something year-old aunt, VERY conservative Pennsylvania Dutch lady, who sent me and my husband a beautiful card on the occasion of our wedding.

    Now my question is, does this legislation update Social Security and Medicare law so that eligibility is based on being legally married somewhere in the U.S., rather than in your current state of residence? This is important to me, because my husband’s career was in the employ of a state (the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) that does not pay SS or Medicare taxes for its employees, so his Medicare and eligibility for Social Security survivor benefits is based entirely on my employment record.

  38. 38.

    columbusqueen

    @Dan B: Not me. I’m a fighting Presbyterian, & so is most of my church. Time to stomp some nutjob Christianists!

  39. 39.

    Tdjr

    Does anyone else think this is a way for  Clarence Thomas to get a quick and easy divorce?

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