LDS Church announces support for Respect for Marriage Act
The LDS Church’s Salt Lake City Temple In what the Salt Lake Tribune has called “stunning news,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced its official support to passage of the federal bipartisan Respect for Marriage Act.
The measure — already passed in the U.S. House and now being considered in the Senate —would codify protections for same-sex and interracial marriages in the United States.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges declared that laws banning same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, but the court’s recent hard-right swerve and Justice Clarence Thomas’ comments in the recent Dobbs decision suggest the court could overturn Obergefell and even Loving v.
Virginia if given the opportunity. The LDS church in 2008 campaigned vigorously in favor of California’s proposed Constitutional amendment, Proposition 8, which prohibited legal recognition of same-sex marriage in that state.
