Senate vote to protect same-sex marriage reflects long political shift
Washington PostNov 30, 2022
The Facts
On Tuesday, US Pres. Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, a bipartisan bill to protect same-sex and interracial marriage at a federal level.
The House — which initially approved the measure in July — passed the bill in a 258-169 vote last week after the Senate amended it to include protections for religious liberty.
The Spin
Republican narrative
This bill has been passed and signed despite majority opposition from Republican lawmakers over the language of the legislation that infringes on religious freedoms and will pave the way to increased federal action and litigation against religious groups. The law does nothing to actually advance LGBTQ+ freedoms but does everything to threaten religious ones.
Nerd narrative
There's a 24% chance that Lawrence v. Texas — which ruled that laws making sexual relations between consenting, adult gay couples illegal violated 14th Amendment rights to liberty and privacy — will be overturned by 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
