House sends same-sex marriage bill to Biden
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House gave final approval Thursday to a bill legalizing same-sex and interracial marriage, sending it to President Joe Biden to be signed into law over opposition from Texas Republicans, who were among the bill’s most vocal critics.
The legislation, which passed the Senate last month, ensures that same-sex and interracial unions will be protected by federal law, even if the Supreme Court were to overturn its rulings establishing those rights. The bill passed the House on a 258-169 vote, with 39 Republicans — including one Texan, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio — joining every Democrat in sending it to the White House.
Democrats and LGBTQ advocates say the legislation is especially important in Texas, where laws banning same-sex marriage and sodomy remain on the books, where the state GOP has written opposition to same-sex relationships into its party platform, and where Republican lawmakers are expected to push against LGBTQ rights in a significant way in the upcoming legislative session.
“Back home in my state of Texas, people are literally scared,” Rep. Sylvia Garcia, Dhouston,
said during debate on the bill ahead of the vote. “Entire families are considering fleeing Texas for fear of what the MAGA GOP will do to their partners and their loved ones.”
The bill would require states such as Texas to recognize legal marriage licenses issued in states where same-sex marriage is legal. Texas judicial rules allow officials to either perform all or no ceremonies — they can
not discriminate against samesex couples and marry only opposite-sex ones.
State agencies and local governments would have to recognize the marriages as well. For married same-sex couples in Texas, the legislation would protect family health care plans, wills and more if the high court were to revisit its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, as Justice Clarence Thomas has suggested it should.
Texas Republicans say the legislation would open the door for lawsuits against religious individuals, schools and more that refuse to serve those in same-sex unions. The version of the bill that passed the House on Thursday included new provisions added by Republican senators, meant to guard religious institutions, but Texas Republicans argued that those do not go far enough.
Rep. Chip Roy, an Austin Republican whose district stretches to San Antonio, called the bill “a sword to be used against the American people if they exercise their closely held religious beliefs.”
Rep. Michael Burgess, a Pilot Point Republican, said the religious liberty provisions in the bill protect only those who are “religious enough.”
“If you’re a church, you’re protected,” Burgess said. “If you’re an individual or a school, you may not be, and you may be subject to that private right of action.”
Roy pushed an amendment aimed at preventing such lawsuits, but Democrats blocked it.
The legislation would also repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the decades-old federal law banning same-sex marriage.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Dhouston, who was the lone member of the Texas delegation to oppose DOMA when it passed in 1996, said in a speech on the House floor that the law “was wrong then, it is wrong now.”
“Dignity should be part of life in America,” she said. “It is shameful that we would have to be here today.”
The federal legislation comes after the Texas GOP adopted a platform this summer declaring that “homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice.”
“We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin, and we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction or belief in traditional values,” the platform states.
Republican state lawmakers, meanwhile, have already filed
more than 10 bills for the legislative session that begins next month that would primarily affect LGBTQ Texans. They include measures targeting gender-affirming care for transgender teens and ongoing efforts to
limit classroom discussion of human sexuality. Both of those issues will be priorities in the state Senate next year, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has said.