The Lower House of the United States approved this Tuesday to protect homosexual marriage by law, after the elimination of the right to abortion by the Supreme Court has set off alarms over the possibility that more judicial precedents will be eliminated in the country.
The House of Representatives, with a Democratic majority, gave its endorsement with 267 votes in favor and 157 against.
That bill will now go to the Senate, where the tight Democratic majority will need the support of at least 10 Republicans to push it through.
Regardless of the future result in the Upper House, progressives can take advantage of a vote that forces Republican senators to take their pictures ahead of the legislative elections in November, whose campaign already dominates the abortion issue.
“If the Supreme Court doesn’t overturn ‘Obergefell’ (the ruling that protects same-sex marriage), this law will be unnecessary, but harmless. If the decision is overturned, it will be crucial,” Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler said, referring to the possibility of that the Supreme Court review other legal precedents after the elimination of the protection of the right to abortion.
Nadler thus responded to Republican Jim Jones, who criticized the Democrats’ proposal as “unnecessary”, since in his opinion the Supreme Court ruling on abortion “makes it clear that it cannot be misconstrued” to apply to other guarantees.
However, Supreme Court Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in an opinion concurring in that ruling that various legal precedents based on the “fundamental due process” doctrine should be reviewed, including rulings protecting same-sex marriage or access to contraceptives.
Several homosexual Democratic representatives recalled this Tuesday the day the US Supreme Court protected homosexual marriage with the “Obergefell v. Hodges” ruling of 2015.
“On that day, the Supreme Court decided that we had the right to same-sex marriage. Many of us sang the national anthem in front of the court, because when your country catches up with you, it’s a precious thing,” said Sean Patrick Maloney of New York.
Another New York congressman, Mondaire Jones, reminded his fellow conservatives that “since ‘Obergefell’ nearly 300,000 gay couples have been married.” “Imagine telling the next generation of Americans, my generation, that we no longer have the right to marry whoever we want,” he lamented.
The Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, revoked on June 24 the ruling “Roe v. Wade”, which for half a decade protected access to abortion in the country.
Since then, a large number of progressive activists and politicians have warned of the possibility that the court will do the same with other rights and have called for a vote for their representatives in the legislative elections to ensure that this does not happen.
Conforms to The Trust Project criteria
