WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday passed landmark legislation that would codify federal protection for marriages of same-sex and interracial couples, with Democrats securing enough votes to overcome opposition from most Republicans.
The Respect for Marriage Act was approved 61-36, with unanimous support from Democrats and 12 GOP votes after defeating a filibuster and rejecting three amendments offered by Republicans who oppose the bill.
The measure now returns to the House for a final vote before it can go to President Joe Biden, who said he looks forward to enacting it.
“With today’s bipartisan Senate passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, the United States is on the brink of reaffirming a fundamental truth: love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love,” Biden said in a statement.
The Senate vote reflects the rapidly growing public support for legal same-sex marriage, which hit a new high of 71% in Gallup tracking polls in June, up from just 27% in 1996 when Gallup first began polling the issue.
"We're making a really positive difference in people's lives by creating the certainty that their ability to protect their families will be lasting," Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the author of the bill and first openly gay lawmaker elected to the Senate, told NBC News.
Baldwin revised the measure to win some Republican votes by adding language making clear religious organizations will not be required to perform same-sex marriages and that the federal government isn’t required to protect polygamous marriages.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said before the vote Tuesday that he was wearing the same tie he wore to the wedding of his daughter and her wife. "It's personal to me," he told reporters.
For some Republicans, backing the bill has sparked blowback.
“My days since the first cloture vote on the Respect for Marriage Act as amended have involved a painful exercise in accepting admonishment and fairly brutal self soul-searching — entirely avoidable, I might add, had I simply chosen to vote 'no,'” Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, one of the GOP supporters, said on the Senate floor.
“I, and many like me, have been vilified and despised by some who disagree with our beliefs. They do not withhold bitter invective. They use their own hateful speech to make sure that I, and others who believe as I do, that we are hated and despised by them,” she added.
The legislation came about after the conservative Supreme Court majority overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, sparking fears that the justices may also revisit its liberal precedents that enshrine marriage rights for gay and interracial couples.
The bill would require the federal government to recognize marriages that were valid in a state when performed. It would also assure full benefits for marriages "regardless of the couple’s sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin," but the bill would not require a state to issue a marriage license contrary to state law.
But if the bill becomes law and the Supreme Court rescinds the right to same-sex marriage, Americans could potentially go to another state and get married if it's not legal in their state.
“This will ensure that wherever you live, if you get married in a state where it’s legal, they have to recognize it wherever you are," a Democratic aide familiar with the legislation said. "And you have the same rights, benefits, responsibilities and freedoms wherever you are.”
A lengthy procedural vote was held open by Schumer on Monday as Democrats sought to cut a deal with GOP senators who threatened to drag out the process unless they received votes on amendments. The chamber had teed up three of them: one by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, at a 60-vote threshold, and two by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., both of which needed just a simple majority to pass. After they failed, the bill passed.
One Democrat, Sen. Raphael Warnock, missed the vote as he campaigns in Georgia for next week’s Senate runoff against Republican Herschel Walker.
Most Republicans opposed the legislation, though earlier procedural votes made all but clear that the bill had enough GOP support to pass. Proponents wanted to pass the measure in the lame-duck session before Republicans take control of the House on Jan. 3.