Senate to vote Tuesday on final passage of same-sex marriage bill

The Senate is ready to vote Tuesday on remaining passage of a bipartisan invoice to guard same-sex and interracial marriage.

The chamber on Monday evening reached an settlement to carry three modification votes beginning at 3:45 p.m. ET earlier than a remaining passage vote. The invoice is anticipated to move the Senate. The Home would then have to approve the laws earlier than sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into legislation.

Supporters of the invoice hope to move the laws via the Home earlier than the tip of the yr with Republicans set to take management of the chamber in January.

Whereas the invoice wouldn’t set a nationwide requirement that each one states should legalize same-sex marriage, it might require particular person states to acknowledge one other state’s authorized marriage.

So, within the occasion the Supreme Courtroom would possibly overturn its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges choice that legalized same-sex marriage, a state might nonetheless move a legislation to ban same-sex marriage, however that state can be required to acknowledge a same-sex marriage from one other state.

The laws cleared a key procedural hurdle earlier this month, when the Senate voted 62-37 to interrupt a filibuster.

The bipartisan group, which incorporates Republican Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, beforehand mentioned in a press release that they appeared “ahead to this laws coming to the ground.”

In an indication of how a lot help has grown in recent times for same-sex marriage, the invoice discovered backing from GOP senators together with these in deeply crimson states.

Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming advised CNN’s Manu Raju earlier this month that she voted to advance the Senate’s same-sex marriage invoice as a result of “Article 1, Part 3 of the Wyoming Structure,” which she learn to reporters and contains an anti-discrimination clause.

“That’s why we’re known as the equality state,” she added.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, in the meantime, mentioned the “invoice made sense” and “supplies necessary spiritual liberty protections.”

“Whereas I consider in conventional marriage, Obergefell is and has been the legislation of the land upon which LGBTQ people have relied,” Romney mentioned in a press release. “This laws supplies certainty to many LGBTQ Individuals, and it alerts that Congress – and I – esteem and love all of our fellow Individuals equally.”