The Respect for Marriage Act advanced last week in a key U.S. Senate vote of 62-37, with some Republican support. If the bill becomes law, it would federally recognize same-sex marriage and require states to recognize any marriage contracted in other states. It would also provide legal protections for interracial marriages.
The act would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law signed by President Bill Clinton that defined marriage federally as the union of a man and a woman and permitted states not to recognize same-sex marriages contracted in other states. That law is not in effect under the 2013 and 2015 Supreme Court decisions United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges, which required states to recognize same-sex unions as marriages.
Backers of a bipartisan religious freedom amendment to the bill say their amendment ensures that nonprofit religious organizations would not be required to provide services, facilities, or goods for the celebration of a same-sex marriage, and protects religious liberty and conscience protections available under the Constitution and federal law, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The amendment, backers say, would ensure that churches, universities, and other nonprofit religious organizations would not lose tax-exempt status or other benefits for refusing to recognize same-sex marriages and would not be required to provide services for the celebration of any marriage.
However, the U.S. bishops questioned these claims.
“Unfortunately, a number of religious groups and senators are asserting that the amended text of (the Respect for Marriage Act) sufficiently protects religious freedom,” Dolan and Barron continued. “From the perspective of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose bishops’ ministries comprise the largest non-governmental provider of social services in the United States, the provisions of the act that relate to religious liberty are insufficient. If passed, the amended act will put the ministries of the Catholic Church, people of faith, and other Americans who uphold a traditional meaning of marriage at greater risk of government discrimination.”
In an analysis accompanying the bishops’ letter, the U.S. bishops’ conference said the bill “will be used to argue that the government has a compelling interest in forcing religious organizations and individuals to treat same-sex civil marriages as valid.” This will allow lawsuits to revisit current precedent based on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and other relevant law.