Respect for Marriage Act passes Senate
By a vote of 61-36, the Senate has passed the Respect for Marriage Act. The Respect for Marriage Act repeals the Defense of Marriage Act and requires the federal government and state governments to recognize interracial and same-sex marriages performed in other states.
What it doesn’t do is require states allow same-sex or interracial marriage. The Defense of Marriage Act was declared unconstitutional in the Windsor case.
That law prevented the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage. Interracial marriage was declared legal in the Loving case in 1968 and same-sex marriage legal in the more recent Obergefell case in 2016.
But in a recent opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas questioned the rulings related to same-sex marriage and suggested the opinions should be revisited.
