Congress definitively adopted Thursday, December 8 the law to protect marriage for all in the United States. After the Senate, the House of Representatives voted the text to protect marriage for same-sex couples, to avoid a cancellation of this right by the Supreme Court, as had been the case for abortion in June.
Some conservative judges of the Supreme Court do not hide it: after canceling the right to abortion in Junethey would also like to withdraw that of homosexual couples to marry – yet guaranteed by a judgment of 2015reports our correspondent in Miami, David Thomson.
This new law wanted by the White House therefore aims to protect marriage for all. This text, baptized the Respect For Marriage Act was voted on by both houses of Congress: it must still be signed in the coming days by President Joe Biden before coming into force.
He praised ” a key measure to guarantee Americans the right to marry the person they love “. A large majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, including in the Republican ranks. But the religious right remains mostly opposed to it.
No absolute guarantee
However, this law is not an absolute protection. Admittedly, it repeals the legislation which defined marriage only as a union. between a man and a woman and prohibits registrars – regardless of the state in which they work – from discriminating against couples “ because of their gender, race, ethnicity or origin “.
But the text does not oblige the States which would refuse it to celebrate marriages between same-sex couples if this right was finally canceled by the Supreme Court. And the temple of law already seems ready to authorize certain American businesses to refuse to serve same-sex couples, in the name of freedom of expression. He could decide in this direction as early as this summer.
The new law was passed by all the elected Democrats in the chamber, 169 elected Republicans having voted against. ” I think it’s the wrong way to go even declared Jim Jordan, representative of Ohio and close to ex-president Donald Trump.
Tribute to Harvey Milk
Minutes before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid tribute to Harvey Milk, California’s first openly gay councilman, who was assassinated in 1978:
” He once told his supporters “I have tasted freedom, I will not go back”. Today, the House stands proudly with the forces of freedom, against the backsliding “, affirmed the chosen one, who will come down from the perch in January and was delighted that this one is” one of the last laws » which she will sign as « Speaker “.
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