There Oughta Be a Law

Yesterday, by an overwhelming vote of 258-167, the House passed the Marriage Equality Act, joining the Senate which passed their end of the bill a couple weeks ago.  President Biden has said he will sign the bill.

All Democrats voted for the bill.  Surprisingly, 47 Republicans crossed party-lines and voted in favor of it, as well.  Surprisingly, too, 167 Republicans voted against.  (Okay, in fairness, Republicans voting against something dealing with equality isn’t actually “surprising,” but it still is given that it’s hard to imagine someone being against two adults in love getting married.)

The other day I saw a wonderful tweet by Rep. Jamie Raskin.  He quoted a statement that Democrats initially used years ago when the Defense of Marriage Act was being debated.  He said that proponents of the bill were being reminded that (and I’m paraphrasing here, but am very close) “When you entered Congress, you put your hand on a Bible to defend the Constitution.  You did not put your hand on the Constitution to defend the Bible.”

There was a lot of outrage by those 167 Republicans yesterday, and even a fair share of weeping by a few, as well, as they pontificated against the concept of marrying someone you love.  I’m sure that the tissue market did big business.

And through it all, through the unrelenting outrage against the near-certain passage of the bill, one thought kept running through my mind – a thought that I didn’t hear mentioned on TV analysis, but one I thought pretty important and basic. 

It was that it seemed those outraged Republicans were unaware that same-sex marriage was, in fact, legal in the United States.

The Marriage Equality Act didn’t do the “oh-horrors, weeping unthinkable” and suddenly make same-sex legal  That demarcation line was passed seven years ago when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Obergefell vs. Hodges.  All state bans on same-sex marriage were struck down, making it legal everywhere in the country. 

So, what the outrage and weeping was over is a bit head-scratching.  (Or would be if we weren’t talking about today’s Republican Party.)  In fact, for all the protections the Marriage Equality Act provided, it still allowed for more loopholes against same-sex marriage than currently exist.  So, you’d think those Weeping Republicans should have been cheering and voting for the bill, given that there were more limits than existed before.

And the thing is, the bill may even end up being moot.  That’s because the only reason it was passed was out of concerns that the current Supreme Court will once again throw out precedent and existing rights and overturn Obergefell.  And if they do that, then it was important that Congress codify some protections for same-sex marriage.  But if the Supreme Court does not reverse itself and throw out existing rights, then it would seem all those rights still hold.

And so, then, the extreme Republicans would finally have something to weep about.  The soul-crushing knowledge to them that the law as it currently stands still is the law, and adults in love can marry one another.

But this being today’s whirl-a-gig Supreme Court, upholding legal rights is not a sure thing.  And so, Congress has acted to protect those rights as best it can.

Protecting existing rights and upholding the existing law.  What a concept.  No wonder so many Republicans were outraged and weeping...