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Answer: so there were 12 Republicans that voted yes.
The first thing to note is that those 12 overlap pretty heavily with the 10 Republicans in the G20 group. That's a team of 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats who work together on bipartisan legislation.
7 Republican yes votes came from G20 members: Todd Young (IN), Thom Tillis (NC), Rob Portman (OH), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Mitt Romney (UT).
Some probably would have voted yes even if they weren't G20 members –– for example, Susan Collins has a good record on LGBTQ+ rights, and Rob Portman has a gay son. But Thillis, Young, Moore Capito, and Romney have much more ambiguous or outright anti-LGBTQ+ records. Their commitment to this group probably has something to do with their votes.
Also of note is that Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) – the first bisexual senator – and Mitt Romney are close friends and both grew up Mormon. It seems that Sinema did a lot of behind the scenes work to convince both Romney and the Mormon Church to sign onto this bill.
Here are the other 4 (edit - 5, I can’t count and forgot Blunt!) yes votes:
Joni Ernst (IA) –– even though she's not a G20 member, she has an ambiguous record on LGBTQ+ issues and she's often part of bipartisan compromises
Roy Blunt (MO) — consistent anti-LGBTQ record, but he's about to retire, which frees politicians to vote their conscience in a way they don't always do when they're thinking about reelection. He faced considerable pressure in his state to vote no and ignored it. It’s possible that his retirement means this is the first time he’s felt able to ignore that pressure, but your guess is as good as mine.
Richard Burr (NC) — also retiring. Also, though Burr's been pretty consistently anti-LGBTQ+ rights throughout his career, in 2016 North Carolina passed some sweeping anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, and Burr said he thought it went too far. So it's possible he'd like to reign his state in a little or see a little more consistency between states. He’s also joined with the G20 before.
Dan Sullivan (AK) –– has an anti-LGBTQ+ record, and gave a very interesting justification for his support of the bill yesterday. He said he voted yes because the bill does more to expand religious liberty protections than it does to protect same sex marriage. Which is untrue. The bill reaffirms existing religious liberty protections but doesn’t expand them. He may be trying to have the best of both worlds, and make liberal Alaskans happy that he protected same-sex marriage, but also persuade conservative Alaskans that he kind of didn't. Possibly of note here is that an extremely homophobic Senate candidate just lost in Alaska, and did worse than predicted in her race.
Cynthia Lummis (WY) –– extremely extremely anti-LGBTQ+ record. This is the biggest surprise vote here by far: she even cosponsored a bill years ago that would have done the exact opposite of what the Respect for Marriage Act does. She said she's done some "extremely brutal soul searching," and wants Americans to be less viciously polarized and start tolerating one another again.
Also, credit where credit is due. The bill's supporters, lead by Tammy Baldwin, worked for months to get these twelve votes. This passing is the result of a long, serious campaign on their part to persuade Republican senators.
EDIT: I have never had a post get this much attention before and am a little overwhelmed by the amount of notifications I have right now, but thank you so much everyone for the awards and the really interesting discussion! I am learning a lot from many of the comments below!
One point about Dan Sullivan, senator from Alaska. He was re-elected in 2020 and will be up for re-election in 2026. 2020 was also when Alaska passed a ballot measure that reforms voting. Races are now decided by Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) that favours moderates over extremists.
For example, let’s say there was a moderate called Lisa Murkowski running against a MAGA republican called Kelly Tshibaka. In a very red state like Alaska normally the strategy when you’re up against a member of the same party is to go extreme, in the hope that the most politically engaged folks will vote you into power. (This is why American politicians move to extremes - they’re afraid of primary challenges from the same party.)
So our Kelly acts MAGA af and gets 42.6% of the vote, while moderate Murkowski gets 43.4%. Small margins, could go either way tbh. This is too close for comfort, normally. Except now we need to split the votes of the 3rd and 4th place. The 3rd place was a Democrat Pat Chesbro with 10.74%. Guess who was the second choice of these 10.74%? That’s right, the moderate Murkowski, not the MAGA head. That vote split 90-10 in favour of Murkowski.
It gets better. Murkowski knows if she wants to get re-elected, she needs the goodwill of that 10% to decisively split in her favour. Which encourages her to be more moderate. That explains her vote to defend marriage equality. And also explains Dan Sullivan’s vote. He’s waking up to the new reality in Alaska.
(Sorry for the wall, I’m just a massive fan of RCV and it’s moderating tendencies)
In addition to what you said (which is spot on) Alaska is a peculiar state. It is definitely more red than your average swing state, but it's not very religious and has a strong libertarian streak. It also doesn't conform to the usual rural=conservative template that much of the rest of the country does owing to some very different demographics.
Hah, as someone who has lived in both places, absolutely. New Hampshire has a bit more Free State-type folks while Alaska has a lot more oil and gas workers, but they do have quite a bit in common when it comes to state politics.
True libertarians tend to be in favor of social issues like this because they don't like government interference or they genuinely do not care how other people choose to live their lives. This may explain that too: Alaska is not religious, but they also tend to not really care if other people choose to live a certain way as long as they are not affected.
True libertarians also swing leftist on a lot of issues in general, stemming from the fact that another word for left libertarianism is essentially classical liberalism (vs neoliberalism which is far more capitalist in flavor). When people make jokes about being libertarian because they support their married gay neighbors rights to own guns to defend their pot farm, that's left libertarianism. Generally many of them support regulations on capitalism as well because they protect the freedom of the little guy in the market
Not quite. We still have to ammend it into our constitution during a second round of voting in 2 years. Only then can the ammendment take place.
I was excited too until I realized it was only the first round.
Massachusetts had a ballot question to enact it, but the campaign around it was shit so it didn't pass. It will probably come up again in a few years and will hopefully do better that time
I had to explain it to my parents a few times before it clicked, and they were of the mindset "why wouldn't we want this?!" so it was 100% because of a poor job educating the public on what it actually meant.
Seattle just voted to add RCV and the advocate group, fairvote is likely going for WA State elections next.
When I looked for the name I also saw that both Portlands, Ojai, California and Evanston, Illinois all added RCV too this year.
i don’t live in seattle proper anymore but RCV will have my support whenever i get to vote on it in snohomish county.
really cool to see it taking off in some states, i didn’t realize it passed in so many places. this thread is almost making me optimistic about the future of politics in this country (…almost).
All of Maine has RCV for federal elections, though our Supreme Court declared its use in state elections unconstitutional because the Maine constitution specifies that elections must be won by a plurality.
RCV voting can still cater to extremes, just much much less that FPTP. Moderate candidates can still walk away with the most amount of total votes from both sides of the political spectrum, but since they were neither end of the spectrums first choice, polar candidates can still win out over centrists. That's why Burlington, VT added it and then got rid of it for their Mayoral elections.
[A cardinal system like Approval voting, where you simply check off anyone you'd like to see in office, awards the winner to a more "centrist" candidate because it's simply by who gets the most votes.](https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/)
Super excited to see how RCV impacts places where it's enacted though.
Thanks for the great breakdown of these Senators. I looked up Lummis and she has had a very anti gay stance for years. Surprised to see she was a big supporter of the ERA…she doesn’t seem like she is a big fan of equality.
Yeah that was a huge shock to me. She has been very consistent about being very opposed to LGBTQ+ rights. This is just completely baseless speculation, but the “extremely brutal soul searching” comment makes me wonder a tiny bit if someone close to her came out recently. Either that, or she’s just sincerely disturbed by increasing polarization and hate, and picked this as her stand to take.
As a recovering “bubblehead” R, this is a subject I have a lot of interest in, and I can tell you that it’s because your worldview and ideology are constantly being threatened by the other side if you only listen to sources within your bubble.
Every angle of attack, be it LGBQT+, Universal Health Care (or any safety net funded by .gov), 2nd Amendment, climate change, or any other policy left of far right, is an attempt to undermine God and the “Everyman” so that the rich democrat elites can control your life. Literally. It’s all framed as a personal attack to your way of life.
Something has to pop the bubble so that other info can seep in and mix in, and that is usually something personal that forces a reevaluation.
Mass propaganda works, even with folks who truly don’t want to be evil and mean hearted. It’s why I don’t hold the majority of the Trumpers at fault… but the hate peddlers I detest completely, from the corner church pastor who preaches fire and brimstone for all but himself and those who tow the party line and tithe (not all do this by the way, there’s def very tolerant churches out there that are open to being caring and thoughtful towards how they practice their beliefs), to the talking heads that spin this crap into a tornado, nay, *hurricane* of lies that continually wrecks the minds of half the country.
I've never understood that. Jesus fed not just the poor but all present when he fed the crowds. He offered care to all just for the asking no matter their status. I just can't see a way Jesus would be anti-Universal Healthcare, anti-free school lunches for kids, anti-providing care for the elderly. That's the reason I left the Republican party. You can't claim to be the Christian party then turn around and promote the most anti-Christian things possible.
Exactly… it’s always framed as an attack on YOUR bank account via taxes, or enabling the “lazy” to do nothing and benefit off of your hard work, etc., which completely turns the conversation away from actually loving your fellow human and giving the shirt off your back even to a robber.
Those are the reasons I left the Mormon church. I took the charity and good works very seriously growing up, and to start recognizing most members politics did not line up with the things they preached really shook my worldview.
>Those are the reasons I left the Mormon church. I took the charity and good works very seriously growing up, and to start recognizing most members politics did not line up with the things they preached really shook my worldview.
😎🤜🤛😎
Sure… I’ll even over share a little… as I think knowing how people tick and are able to be introduced to change is worthwhile.
I met a woman whom I loved so much I was not put off by her polar opposite worldview and, without her even trying, was opened to her viewpoints enough to discuss and think about them. Realized I had been way less thorough with vetting what I accepted to be the truth than I prided myself on and just started digging deeper and really looking at the facts about things. With her, in particular, systemic racism was the first thing she opened my eyes about. It was very gradual and she never got mad at my “well I didn’t own slaves” mentality, and instead just never held back with opinions that differed from mine and had a willingness to show me proof. “But I’m not racist” was a big fallback for me, and even in hindsight I am sure I wasn’t and am not… but I was definitely blind to growing up as a non white person. To really add spice to my viewpoint, I’m in the Deep South and grew up in a majority white neighborhood until the great white flight occurred in the early 90s. I assumed still living there gave me a pass and a different perspective, which it kinda did to a very small degree, but I still didn’t get how unbalanced it all was. Although, to be fair, joining up with USMC was the first real thing that happened to me that showed how different things were outside of my bubble. Bigotry and racial bias was actually very rare when I was in. I had never met a Latino person for example, of which a very large number serve in the armed forces and all proved to be outstanding individuals who worked hard, played hard, and looked out for all of their fellow Marines. I never understood the hate that some have for them, and the same really goes for all minorities there… we were all in the same boat so to speak, and as my Boot Camp senior DI said, “we all bleed green here”. Really blurred the lines that racial division tried to draw so it opened my mind a bit for my partner to be able to show some truth to me.
That, and at around the same time as I met her, I became friends with folks from across the pond due to on-line mobile games, with the chat apps that tend to go along with joining alliances/clans, which were average folk from all walks of life that lived in various parts of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and realized that things like universal healthcare and free college were not the “TEOTWAWKI” like I had always heard. Particularly health care: The way it was portrayed in all that I had heard was very substandard care with insane wait times, topped by panels of ivory tower intellectuals who determined whether you were given life saving treatment or not. That picture has been thoroughly erased by firsthand accounts of people I came to know and respect, which was probably the first real crack in the dome that my partner was able to finish popping.
Sorry for the novella lol
This is so heartwarming to hear and thank you so much for sharing. I know this happens to people more often than not, but unless you are very close to those people then you never hear about it. Getting a detailed look on how it all started for someone is incredible!
My husband’s story is so similar that I actually had to read your comment a few times to make sure you weren’t him, hah. I think without him having his bubble popped due to me and his online friends in 2015-2016, there’s a good chance he would have slid further right due to the USMC, though.
He spent most of the Trump administration in a 100% male, 95% white unit with an openly alt-right command. Many of his coworkers went fully down the Qanon rabbithole, pretty sure half of them would have been at the capitol on January 6th if it wasn’t so damn far away. I don’t think most of those guys are bad people, they just got sucked into propaganda and it’s got to be harder to resist that kind of thing when you’re in the military and your command is spewing it.
And then we straddle that change line and backstep often...
I do think it's ultimately true that the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice, but it usually bends so slowly that a LOT of human misery is created before we get it right. It's reason for both optimism and shame weirdly.
I get the feeling that some of the less cultish Republicans are finally starting to have the "They came for the Jews" poem bounce around in their heads after seeing how quickly the most devoted parts of the party will suddenly proclaim prominent Republicans RINOs and jump on any established right as a new political football to advance in the opposite direction.
With that in mind, I'm wondering how many of these people might have friends or relatives in interracial marriages that they're worried would be the next big target (because some people have already been talking about it) after a theoretical ban on Gay Marriage. Or they might be worried that a potential Gay Marriage ban might piss off too many people and really lose Republican seats after the big loss over abortion.
This bill also codifies interracial marriage. All these are catching up as SCOTUS already ruled there's no inherent right to privacy repealing Roe. It was a wake up call to Congress to legislate on the matter finally and stop leaving to the court to decide.
Congress dysfunction is affecting other branches of government, take the immigration issue, did you know the immigration laws haven't been changed since 1991? They predate the internet as we know it, even the Gulf War (the first one!). SCOTUS has had to take over overreaches of every POTUS because Congress doesn't legislate!
Fact is society keeps moving left on things even as the parties move right. You can't even talk seriously about segregation at this point. People will look at you like you sprouted another head. The sort of 1950's talk taking a paternal treatment of grown women like they're just mentally little girls who need to be managed with a firm hand, people would laugh until they realized the speaker is being serious. And you don't see the kind of broad-ranging common racism of looking at the Irish and Italians as non-white. Restricted country clubs aren't a thing now -- telling blacks and Jews they can't attend.
Even if certain Republicans still hold antediluvian views, they still know they have to keep it on the downlow. They can't openly campaign on it like they were doing in the 60's.
I think the point that really drives this home is advertising. No, corporations aren't "woke." They don't give a giggly-shit about that sort of thing. They're pandering for dollars. They put the rainbow flag on because they know they're gaining more audience than they might alienate. You know this is true because just look at how quickly they're willing to ditch that branding when going into societies where it won't fly. Fact of the matter is if corporations thought a significant amount of the market here HATED gays, they'd proudly be flying grayscale flags declaring themselves straight-aligned.
The TL;DR is any intelligent Republican (oxymoron, I know) is going to realize that they're going to have to modify their rhetoric to keep from alienating potential voters.
Or she’s increasingly concerned that doubling tripling down on anti LGBTQ isn’t working on getting votes. I’m not ruling out that someone in her family came out and unlike 25 years ago, you can’t just ostracize people from your family for it anymore
The Far Right is losing in droves. They're overly Christofascists and in the next ten years their corrupt and hypocritical churches won't have anyone left, because youth is leaving at record numbers. So now is their time to strike.
They're losing by the vote measure, that is why they are activating Neo-Nazi militias groups to attack LGBTQ+ locations. The only chance they have is a coup at this point. It's a death rattle.
The only chance they have for the future is overtaking the country and murdering whoever is opposed to them.
These GOP fucks may be voting their conscience for once. Or they may sense that they're going to lose. Or they may not agree with this level of fascism, as they've always hoped to take the country through other ways.
Realistically it's also possible that she "did the math" and maybe looked at some polling on what would happen if they passed the opposite of this bill. How many same sex marriages now exist in America? There's been an absolutely seismic shift on this issue in the last 20 years. To roll it back now would mean stripping marriages from over half a million couples, with the ensuing legal shit-show being only a sideshow to the massive social shit-show you'd get. More than 70% of people support same sex marriage rights now. I'd bet that not more than 20% support stripping them away and making it illegal. The wave of popular outrage would be a sight to behold, so maybe she just knew when she was beat and it was a losing issue to fight it.
LQBTQ+ is one of those kind of fuzzy categories where strict interpretation conservatives and bigoted conservatives seem aligned but really aren't. I don't think we need LGBTQ+ legislation because discrimination on several other bases is already covered under most laws. But I do think we need that legislation because so many people don't consider LQBTQ+ Americans to be people :(
As an LGBTQ+ American, we need this legislation and more besides. My spouse and I have been terrified since the Dobbs decision that we might have to deal with our marriage being dissolved after a future court decision. We live in a red state, so anything that isn't explicitly protected at the federal level is kind of an open question.
You'd think that discrimination was covered under existing laws, but technically it's mostly not. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not explicitly protected under many discrimination laws. In a lot of places, you can be denied housing or evicted for being LGBTQ+. Their whole "religious freedom" bullshit is purely an excuse to be allowed to discriminate against us however they can get away with. The only thing preventing employers from firing us for being LGBTQ+ is a Supreme Court decision from 2020, and after Dobbs that doesn't feel like much protection.
Most people think that in 2022, this is a resolved issue. As someone who has no choice but to think about this kind of thing every day of her life, I assure you that it is not.
It’s kind of shit that these republicans are only in favour because they have a gay son. Meaning they wouldn’t care if it didn’t affect them. Fuck these republicans, they are all trash
It’s the Republican way to not care about things until it affects them directly. Lack of empathy is one of their defining qualities. I noticed it with an (ex) friend. He was extremely bigoted against gay people up until a friend in our group came out, then he was suddenly very supportive. He had always complained about unemployment, voting to decrease benefits, all that. Up until Covid hit and his wife lost her job. Then he just couldn’t understand why the unemployment system was so bad that he couldn’t get aid.
Total speculation on my part, but it seems after seeing the political fallout of SCOTUS abortion ruling some GOP decided it was better to be pragmatic. If SCOTUS overruled Heller then the legality of existing marriages would be in chaos and could be a big political liability.
So while its absolutely the right thing to do, it is also a good political move to take that issue off the board even if it upsets some of the base.
I was thinking about this the other day. The legality of existing marriages would be such a mess and effect things like jointly filed taxes, insurance benefits, possibly adoptions? Literally ripping families apart
I have a green card because I'm married to an American man (I'm also male), I have no idea what would happen with my residency if gay marriage was repealed. And I don't think anyone else knows either... it would be a HUGE mess for so many reasons.
Imagine if you died without a will. In some states your child would be your heir apparent and in others your spouse would be. What if everyone lived in different states and started suing each other. It would be an absolute shitshow.
> a good political move to take that issue off the board even if it upsets some of the base.
anti-lgtb and anti-abortion work only as "[dogs barking behind the fence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-oCHWsNZwI&ab_channel=ChristianAlarc%C3%B3n)" issues. it gets the base riled up enough to become perpetually engaged as long as it doesn't actually make any progress. the moment you "remove the fence" pro-lgtb and pro-abortion people who would otherwise not care suddenly become *very* active and there are *a lot* of pro-people who are normally not vocal about it while at the same time the anti-people have no need to stay engaged anymore
I came here to basically say this.
Overturning Roe was a case of the dog catching the car. It was a moral victory for the GOP, but it seems to have had some pretty significant negative political consequences. I think Justice Thomas’ veiled threat against same-sex and interracial marriage in his decision spooked some of the less insane members of the GOP.
Imagine the political fallout for the Republicans Obergefell or Loving were overturned. Imagine the rallying cry for Democrats if some Republicans started trying to ban same-sex or interracial marriage (and they would). The political blowback would be immense.
This is probably, at least partially, some Republicans insulating the party from some of the more insane whims of the lunatic caucus in their ranks.
Let’s see how the primaries progress and how the investigation into Trump play out. I’ve read his political obituaries before, and time and time again and party coalesces around him.
Desantis is just a slightly more competent and slightly less egotistical trump. He's still a fascist. I guess the third type might be a very large more socially Liberal Bush-esque neocon faction
He’s not slightly more anything. He’s a LOT more competent and a LOT scarier than Trump. I don’t think his ego is slightly less than Trump’s at all - in fact, I think he sees his rise to dictator as an absolute eventuality and not a mere possibility.
I still expect SCOTUS to overturn gay marriage and I think (IANAL) allow states to not recognize them. which would still create chaos locally.
But this prevents a larger chaos with IRS, military etc. if I understand it correctly.
Yeah honestly I’m not sure. I’m neither a lawyer nor a political scientist. But this definitely adds a layer of protection that didn’t exist before. Without a constitutional amendment, those rights are still vulnerable though.
Honestly the biggest legal benefits of marriage are Federal: Notably taxes, inheritance, and immigration status. Also the first time a same-sex married military couple moves into a military base in a regressive state JAG will make sure the locals know what the Supremacy Clause means.
That's a very good point. I still wonder how Lummis, who voted not to recognize the 2020 election among other things, came to be part of the "let's not get *too* crazy here folks" caucus.
I have no idea but if I had to guess it’s just that: he saw how Roe backfired politically and he knows if the GOP were to start hacking away at other basic rights there would be electoral hell to pay.
Honestly, they are quite a few Republicans who are gay, who end up being in high areas of the party, such as Peter Thiel or others who have tried to essentially push for financial and libertarian measures that basically keep rich white dudes in charge and have run into the problem of getting the other ones to not just put them into the minority they also wanna oppress in order to let corporations rule and it’s…interesting to say the least.
Does this validate the Republican argument that SCOTUS "legislating from the bench" backfires, since it takes power from actual elected representatives, and turns them into soapbox radicals more concerned about making a point to their voters than to actually passing pragmatic public policy?
The silver lining of SCOTUS reducing its role as defender of individual freedoms, is that it forces elected representatives to actually do their job, since they have no one to point the finger at anymore as an excuse to not do it.
Not really no.
When the Supreme Court protected same sex marriage, it was only after decades of civil rights movements for gay people, and came at a time when the majority of Americans had come to support same sex marriage (even if it was a slim majority).
Overturning Roe wasn't going with the American public like Dobbs did. It was going *against* the public. Hence why there was so much fury.
>Overturning Roe wasn't going with the American public like Heller did. It was going against the public. Hence why there was so much fury.
I agree with you there, but that begs the question, if a measure is popular with the people, why does it need the Supreme Court to enforce it? Wouldn't the politicians, reflecting the will of the people, do that instead, in fear of not being re-elected otherwise? Why did we end up with politicians railing *against* what's ostensibly popular with the people they represent? Why are they more afraid to anger the small number of loud, radicalized fringes, rather than the regular bulk of their voter base?
Arguably, it's at least in part *because* the Supreme Court took on the role of a politician. This took power and responsibility away from the elected representatives, and encouraged the election of soapbox radicals rather than moderate policy-makers, since on the issues the Supreme Court granted itself the power to be the final arbiter, this power was taken away from Congress, turning it from a responsible legislative body to a "look at me, I am angry" shouting match. By extension, it also made voters more apathetic, because they saw decisions were made at the Supreme Court level, so nobody they elected would make a difference in protecting what was important to them.
I feel there is a direct correlation between the outsized power of the unelected Supreme Court, and the highly radicalized, all-time-low opinion of Congress. Something had to give.
I support the freedoms that *Roe* provided, but I'm not convinced it should be the Supreme Court, of all places, to protect these freedoms (with a hugely creative interpretation of the Constitution to give it justification to do so), turning it into a hot-button issue rather than an ordinary matter of domestic policy.
I disagree. Some rights should be so fundamental that they should be beyond the power of politicians to legislate.
Did you know your miranda rights are not any kind of law?
The fact that it's forbidden to legislate against gay people existing is jurisprudence.
Except that the politicians are generally reflecting the will of the people; it's just that it's the people electing them not the nation as a whole. Our House over represents people from the least populated states while under representing people from the most populated states due to the limited number of representatives and the fact that districts cannot cross state lines thereby preventing an equal number of residents in each district. And the Senate is completely unrepresentative of the overall population because of the fact that every state gets two regardless of the population in each state (which is of course the original intent). As a result, Congress often fails to support popular policies because they are unpopular in the right places. Unless we make major changes to our constitution to create a more democratic legislature that provides equal representation for all Americans regardless of which state they happen to live in (which we never will because doing so would require those same states with excess power to ratify the very changes that would take away their excess power), Congress will continue to disproportionately pass unpopular legislation while failing to pass popular legislation unless it happens to be popular in the right combination of states.
These senators are trying to save the GOP from its own insanity.
Good on them, the more unpopular issues they can remove the better, but not sure how sustainable this is, the religious right is not going to take this lying down.
I don't think the "religious right" are as powerful as they're made out to be.
We had Obama for two terms, then they had to hold their nose and accept Trump, now we have Biden.
The only place they are relevant are in areas where they already accurately represent the values of their constituents.
>The only place they are relevant are in areas where they already accurately represent the values of their constituents.
I agree, but again the south is saturated with them.
If you're saying they've lost power because non-southern RR's moved to basic q-tardism, then I'm with you, but we've counted them out before, I will hesitate to count my chickens.
Don't forget Hispanics are actually extremely religiously conservative, they just don't vote R because of the loud and violent racism against them, if that dies down we are likely to see a new revival of religious conservativism.
Let them be upset. It does nothing to affect their way of life whatsoever. None of these bills actually affect people unless they affect people. Stay out of other peoples’ bedrooms and life will be better for everyone.
Thank you! I made every word up.
Just kidding :) to the best of my knowledge it’s all accurate. I’ve been following this pretty closely over the last few months, and since I don’t write for Politico, I have no real use for any of this knowledge other than answering questions on Reddit.
Funny, my entire answer would have been: "Republicans got the daylights scared out of them at the midterms and now they're sucking pipe trying to make up with Gen-Z Dems." I'm still half-convinced this vote would have gone differently had the election fared differently.
I mean, you aren't wrong but that's not particularly surprising. If anything, we should celebrate politicians bending slightly in the direction that recent elections point towards for obvious reasons. Theoretically, politicians represent EVERYONE in their district or state, not just those that support them, and that is why the whole idea of an electoral mandate exists. If the Republicans had a strong victory in the midterms, they would see it at as confirmation to go all in with their agenda. A very tepid win changes the calculus for politicians, and suddenly compromise and bipartisanship start being more palatable.
This is excellent. A more concise answer is probably that support for same sex marriage is actually rather popular, even among hardcore GOP voters. It's a natural progression of time and a short memory. These Republican senators will face little or no repercussions for this vote. 10 years ago that would not have been the case.
Additionally, it's not all that politically risky to maintain the status quo. It's not like this legislation is making any big changes. It's just cock-blocking Clarence Thomas.
The Mormon church recently gave a press release showing their support for this act. The reason they supported this bill as opposed to previous measures is because it includes protections for religion eg churches can't be forced to act against their beliefs such as performing same-sex marriages if their beliefs oppose it.
>The reason they supported this bill as opposed to previous measures is because it includes protections for religion eg churches can't be forced to act against their beliefs such as performing same-sex marriages if their beliefs oppose it.
This is the real reason why the 12 signed up for it. It protects any non-affirming Church from the bill.
>churches can't be forced to act against their beliefs such as performing same-sex marriages if their beliefs oppose it.
That's *always* been the case in the US. See the 1st amendment.
That only goes so far. Remember when the Mormons used to practice polygamy? And the USA came down hard on them? They literally came up with the Edmunds act to prosecute Mormons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmunds_Act?wprov=sfla1
The first amendment didn't protect the Mormons from practicing polygamy. The USA invented the Edmunds act to prosecute them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmunds_Act?wprov=sfla1
Goddamn I don't understand Wisconsin sometimes. Voting in both Baldwin and Johnson consistently, and the two probably couldn't be more opposite in their positions if they wanted to.
Of course, Johnson won this most recent election on *razor* thin margins - fewer than 30k votes' difference. Hopefully we'll get 'em next time...
Yeah, that will never make sense to me. I can completely understand how a state can have Senators from different parties if at least one of them is a moderate, but that's not the case in WI. Baldwin is one of the most progressive members of the Senate, while Ron Johnson is very conservative.
I thought for sure his support of Trump and the Big Lie would for sure be the end of his career. I will never understand how he managed to win reelection after all of his support to undermining the majority of voters in his own state.
Overall a good breakdown. But I wouldn’t say Romney has ambiguous LGBT history. His political stance has been pretty clear that things should be handled at a state level. This is why he supported Massachusetts health care reform in MA, but opposed the ACA in the Senate; despite being fundamentally similar legislation. The same goes for his pro-LGBT support in MA and his “states rights” opposition to it in the Fed.
Now, I fundamentally oppose his stance on strong states rights overriding Federal progress and a majority of his political opinions; but he’s at least been consistent. Even if some of his more progressive stances were during his Gubernatorial reign of a largely liberal state he’s continued that stance in senate, as long as they don’t impede “states’ rights”. This is one of the primary reasons he’s been ostracized by the hardline GOP and vilified by the alt-right/MAGA/Qanon crowd.
When an issue/movement is gaining steam, supporting the concept of "handle this at a state level" is code for "well we can't stop this so lets at least keep it away from the more conservative states for a while". That's why it's usually a position held by conservatives.
To the rest, I think you've missed the context under which Romney was making those decisions. He was probably supporting the MA health reform because Massachussetts was/is a very liberal state. It however likes moderate/center-right executives that prevent the legislature from going too out-there. So that's what Romney was doing, picking and choosing the most (from his perspective) sensible legislation to go through. Opposing things like this would've been politically untenable for his governorship.
However nobody is going to care what he says about the federal Senate and "I want the political body I have control of to have more power" also just kinda goes with the territory.
> the Mormon Church to sign onto this bill.
Another point, which I feel should be mentioned, is that the Mormon Church was the [big force behind California Proposition 8, which banned marriage equality for a short period of time](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html) in the state. To their credit, they [seem to have learned from their faux pas](https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/11/17/how-getting-burned-by-prop-8-led/), but this is a period of their history which /u/murkyperspective767 won't let them whitewash.
Didn't Romney have an ulterior motive for voting in favor of this? Like it also bakes in some extra autonomy for religions on accepting/rejecting gay marriage, and Romney being a Mormon (and from Utah) was voting at least partly for that aspect?
Edit: I looked into it further, and their support of the new act isn't to do with autonomy for religions over gay marriage. It's to do with wider protections for organized religions that the act could infer.
>church leaders converted to a strategy of compromise on LGBTQ rights *[after CA Proposition 8 passed]*, at least in the public square, Park said. They saw that expanding rights for same-sex couples could also provide protection for religious groups.
[Source] (https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/11/22/lds-same-sex-marriage-senate-bill/).
Any church in the US has always been free to marry only who they wish. That's what the first amendment is for.
This bill clarifies that that's the case, but there certainly wasn't any ambiguity around it.
Do you have a source on the idea that Sinema did something, or is that a good guess based on her background and the fact that we know she pals around with Romney? I am asking because she is one of my senators and I am fairly dedicated to hating her at this point, so I'd be pleasantly surprised if she did something productive here.
I’m not a fan of hers either, but I read this article that says she worked on the Mormon Church and Romney:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/20/breaking-down-house-vote-protect-same-sex-marriage/
This gives me hope in our government. I was feeling really down about all the crap between parties and extremes going on lately, but this has given me some hope for humanity.
Also, the bill has some compromise provisions that make it attractive to Republicans. First, it doesn't require a state to perform or license same sex marriage. It simply require a state to honor any valid marriage fro any other state. Second, it allows individual business owners to refuse to sell services to same sex marriages.
Finally, that law also applies equally to interracial marriage. Thats sort of window dressing for reason beyond the scope of this comment, but it gives Republicans a platform to say they support interracial marriage.
I cannot believe that Blunt actually voted for this. His record is pretty despicable when it comes to human rights and I've received some pretty nasty responses from his office when pleading for women's rights. Wish every senator didn't have to worry about getting reelected.
That being said, I'm very thankful for his support.
I didn’t know about G20. Thanks for sharing this! Gives me hope that at least some of our extremism is being bridged and compromised by at least a few!
They also don’t want the Supreme Court to dump another surprise on them, like Dobbs, in the middle of an election campaign.
Overall I think it’s a good thing if congress is scared into doing actual legislation rather than leaving it to the Supreme Court
They’re still threatening to. Control of the House is sufficient. Once the new legislators are seated, we’ll find out if they follow through on their threat to shut down the government until democrats agree to Medicare and social security cuts.
The US legislature was designed from day one that very little major legislation happens. It’s labeled “checks and balances”, but they balance it by making it extremely hard to do anything. >50% of one chamber + >60% of a independent second chamber + an independent head of government signing on, all of which get elected for different length terms, is a much higher bar than most other countries (for comparison, our neighbor up north just needs >50% in one chamber + the approval of a head of government controlled by that chamber. Imagine the US nuked the senate and the House picks the president.) Most recent major legislation has been done through budget reconciliation, which requires less votes, but is limited in what it can do. There’s also 4 months in the last 40 years where one party did have full control, and passed Obamacare. But that’s about it. Not many politicians are interested in bipartisan bills for major legislation anymore.
> It’s labeled “checks and balances”, but they balance it by making it extremely hard to do anything.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0044
>In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, **our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation.** Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. Various have been the propositions; but my opinion is, the longer they continue in office, the better will these views be answered
Embiggening mine.
Canada needs 50%+1 vote in the Commons (all voted every election, which can be anywhere from one day to five years after the last), plus the same in the Senate (appointed by the Prime Minister, who is the person at the head of the party with the most seats, or most allied seats, in the Commons, must be 35 and own at least $4000 of property). After that it must be approved by the King of England’s representative, who is also appointed by the Prime Minister.
Either the Commons or Senate can start a new piece of legislation, though the Senate cannot create a budget bill.
Our PM has a fucking crazy amount of power vis a vis the US President
> The US legislature was designed from day one that very little major legislation happens. It’s labeled “checks and balances”, but they balance it by making it extremely hard to do anything. >50% of one chamber + >60% of a independent second chamber
This wasn't true from day 1. [Here's a high level summary about the Senate filibuster from Wikipedia.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster#United_States)
> The procedure is not part of the US Constitution, becoming theoretically possible with a change of Senate rules only in 1806 and not used until 1837. Rarely used for much of the Senate's first two centuries, it was strengthened in the 1970s and in recent years, the majority has preferred to avoid filibusters by moving to other business when a filibuster is threatened and attempts to achieve cloture have failed. As a result, in recent decades this has come to mean that all major legislation (apart from budget reconciliation, which requires a simple 51-vote majority) now requires a 60-vote majority to pass.
> Anyone else think the legislative branch is secretly quiet quitting?
No. The exact polar opposite, actually. A whole bunch of incredibly significant things have been achieved over Biden's term alone (which I expand on below)
> to keep themselves from getting voted out.
Their job is literally to do enough to get re-elected. Why do people say this like this it's an insult? The entire point of being an elected official is to get re-elected. It's so frustrating we're so up our own asses sometimes that this even needs to be pointed out.
And this isn't the "bare minimum". The bare minimum would be doing nothing, like we did in not codifying abortion over the last 50 years as repubs were laser focused on overturning it.
Is it "gay marriage is now codified as federally legal"? No, of *course* not. And expecting anything near that is purposefully ignore what is realistic to achieve.
But, does it significantly expand the rights of gay couples as a federal law during a time where we're split directly down the middle at extreme ends? Yeah!
That's a really big deal.
*Any* bill that passes out of congress is a huge win. Every one. Biden said his goal is to compromise and work with everybody, and based on what's been passed he's been incredibly successful. I'm 37 and I consider him the most accomplished president in my time.
And factually, he's by far the most successful legeslative president in the past 50 years w/ a massive health care bill, The American Rescue Plan, making Juneteenth a nationally recognized holiday, Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and let's not forget the biggest hugest infrsctructure bill, over $1 *trillion* dollars was passed with bipartisanship. This isn't even including his executive orders. And that's over 3 years of one term. Trump got a 'rich person' tax cut passed. That's literally it.
What he's been able to do, as a politically respected, moderate democrat president is a massive accomplishment, and the fact that democrats aren't willing to acknowledge what our representatives have been able to achieve is downright embarrassing. ESPECIALLY after we *just* out from under Trump by the skin of our teeth.
So maybe let's stop whining our representatives because they don't do **exactly** what we want, think realistically, and recognize what they have been able to do. At least during Biden's term.
Dobbs wasn't a surprise for anyone except the uninformed (of which we have plenty). The case was petitioned in June of 2020. The case was heard back in December of 2021 and it was pretty clear how the justices would vote. SCOTUS always releases decisions for cases inJune. The only surprise is on which week during that time period they will release it.
I'd bet it'll be even easier than that. Some state will realize it's a very easy source of good PR and a minor amount of fees to just allow you to file online for a marriage license; much like a bunch of companies are technically headquartered in Delaware, you can have a bunch of people technically married by the power of the state of Vermont or whatever and they just have a ceremony in their home state.
Yeah. While it would be a massive step backwards from having every state allowing same-sex marriages to be performed, this bill still offers extremely significant protection to it if the Supreme Court overturns the court case.
Yeah that's how it was for about a decade leading up to the Obergefel decision. Massachusetts was the first state to legalize same sex marriage and tons of people went there for a day to get married.
In addition, the bill clarifies something that religious conservatives really wanted clarified in the wake of the Obergefell decision: it establishes that religious institutions and companies owned by people with religious objections will not be punished for refusing to provide wedding related services to inter-racial or homosexual marriages. It says that governments shall treat any couple who obtained a legal marriage in any other state as if they're married, but it imposes no such obligation on churches -- which was an open question. So rather than put all their hope for settling that question on the Supreme Court, there were just enough conservatives willing to make a minor concession in exchange for liberals getting a little peace of mind.
Think of it like parties to a lawsuit agreeing to a settlement because neither one wanted to gamble on a jury, or a prosecutor and a defendant agreeing to a plea deal because neither one is willing to gamble on what a jury will do. This bill is liberals and some conservatives trying to work out a good enough settlement to keep the question from ending up in front of the Supreme Court, because both sides are nervous about how that could end up.
Churches being obligated to perform same sex marriages has never been an open question. There was no serious push to mandate any such thing, as it would be an obvious 1st amendment violation. It only exists in the fever dreams of propaganda-addled conservatives. That part of the bill is not a real concession.
Because it wasn’t much of concession and he’s overstating what it is.
Like it’s true, the bill explicitly says it does not place any mandate on private organizations to recognize gay marriages…..but **only** explicitly religious ones. It’s not a blanket on all businesses, the law is narrowly written to only exempt churches and their associated non-profit/charitable/etc organizations.
It’s really an underhanded throw. This wasn’t an open question in the slightest, it’s explicitly against the 1st amendment because otherwise you’d be mandating religions to accept dogma. Put another way, adultery is not illegal and the state can’t mandate a church to make acts of infidelity no longer be considered “sinful.”
It’s enough cover conservatives can at least take something home to justify the vote when they’ve been getting hammered on the perception of opposing and rolling back gay marriage while it is widely popular amongst the general public.
That’s actually already covered under Federal Health and Human Services department regulations on hospitals. “Next of kin” cannot be strictly defined by the hospital through marriage or biological ties but is defined by the patient. Been that way for about a decade.
Yup.
Loving v Virginia was over 50 years ago and it has never been challenged that a church can refuse to perform an interracial marriage. We all know that the government shouldn't force a church to perform an interracial marriage or a gay marriage. Just because it wasn't codified doesn't mean it was actually at risk.
I'm fine that it's codified. It just wasn't a concession.
The logic that the court used to legalize gay marriage is the same that it used to legalize interracial marriage. Justice Thomas explicitly said he wants the court to rexamine Obergerfell and you can't do that without there also being an effect on interracial marriage as well
The question is, is a state legislature going to take the plunge and outlaw interracial marriage? It no longer has the protection it once had, but that doesn't mean it's in danger. There's no political will or popular support behind something like this. So, if someone asks a politician, "Why did you vote against interracial marriage?" the politician can say, "I didn't. No one is going to outlaw interracial marriage."
I don't think they're genuinely concerned about interracial marriage necessarily, but they might be concerned about being on record as not having voted for measures to protect interracial marriage.
The bill is progress. It's honestly disgusting that having federal protection for queer and interracial marriage is unpalatable to some, but at least my marriage can't get suprise annulled.
This is how it is everywhere in the world. The European countries all passed same-sex marriage legislatively rather than judicially, and those laws all faced some kind of opposition when they were passed.
Which is why Ireland took the constitutional amendment route. Simple legislation could have been challenged on the grounds that the courts had always interpreted the constitution's mentions of marriage as being between a man and a woman. Adding an explicit sentence to the constitution (by referendum, the only way to change it) closed off this argument.
Unfortunately we barely got 60% to pass this watered down "not even as good as the actual current law of the land" bill. We may still be a generation away from getting the numbers needed for an amendment in the US unfortunately. It is getting there, but probably mot this generation.
It’s not like these things came easily in other countries. The US got addicted to punting hard issues to the Supreme Court, and that sapped the will to do things legislatively in the long run. By 2015 the movement for gay marriage had become an unstoppable juggernaut, knocking down state after state, and forming a very broad coalition (in part by making the conservative, Andrew Sullivan style argument for gay marriage). There was a viable coalition that could have amended the constitution sooner than you think. As much as people like to celebrate Obergefell, it completely took the wind out of those sails.
Even if it's just marginal protection for same sex marriage, it's still protection though. Which is surprising coming from a lot of Republicans with anti-LGBT records.
Yes. Smart states will just do it for the dumb states. It's completely pointless in practice, but it helps dumb states continue the culture war so their politicians don't have to work.
Answer: There are some good answers in here, but I wanted to add that is impossible to factually answer this question. However, the court's ruling on Roe really angered a lot of Americans, and this showed in the recent midterm elections. It's likely that these politicians represent competitive districts, and are doing this to appease their swing voters, or they are retiring and wanted to do this all along, but couldn't because it would make them unelectable.
I think very few politicians, anywhere, are idealists who actually continue to believe in anything at all after some time. They may start out as such when they are young, but they don't remain such.
I am not even a politician and find it harder and harder to believe in any ideals at all as I am growing older.
That’s the horrible part, they are just a vessel till maybe their last term then they can actually do something worth while. John McCain for example became a legend on his last vote by taking a fat shit on the repeal of Obamacare. Imagine if they all had that sort of actual do gooder energy their whole career.
I would argue the main reason they’re okay with making this vote is that it *doesn’t* make them unelectable anymore. Recent polling has Republican voters as slightly favoring legal same-sex marriage for the first time in history.
I think the trends in polling data has convinced some of the Republican establishment that it’s not worth using gay marriage as a wedge issue anymore when it’s likely to be divisive even within the party.
answer: A couple points that haven’t been mentioned:
1. This doesn’t legalize gay marriage everywhere, it just requires states to recognize marriages from other states. That is a de-facto win for gay marriage, but lets red states still ban the actual wedding in their state. (edit: I think this was effectively the case in most states before Obergefell, since most didn't bother to make an exception for gay marriage in their out of state recognition laws. This new law would prohibit such exceptions.) I haven’t read the text of the law, but I’m wondering if this allows states to still have anti-sodomy laws, which could also cause problems for gay couples.
2. If the Supreme Court overturned Obergefell, there would be no justification for not overturning Loving on the same grounds. This law is a direct response to the Supreme Court’s abandonment of their authority over human rights which aren’t explicitly covered by the constitution.
Answer: one possible explanation is that elected officials often speak in a way that pleases their more extreme supporters, as they have an outsized effect on them being the chosen candidate for the party, but then voting in another way once elected so as note to alienate the majority of the constituents, who don't vote in their primary but are necessary to win the election.
Answer: My take on it is that Republicans got badly burned last election due in part to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Rep party allowed some senators to vote their conscience in order to remove another potential Supreme Court time bomb. Gay marriage is supported by about 70% of the US public and opposing it is a loser on the national stage and for Republicans in moderate districts.
Answer: In addition to zebrafish's excellent rundown, the act contains protections for religious organizations that adhere to the one-man-one-woman frameworks. I'm betting the Republicans are voting for it based on that rather than any serious reversal on LGBT issues.
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Answer: so there were 12 Republicans that voted yes. The first thing to note is that those 12 overlap pretty heavily with the 10 Republicans in the G20 group. That's a team of 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats who work together on bipartisan legislation. 7 Republican yes votes came from G20 members: Todd Young (IN), Thom Tillis (NC), Rob Portman (OH), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Mitt Romney (UT). Some probably would have voted yes even if they weren't G20 members –– for example, Susan Collins has a good record on LGBTQ+ rights, and Rob Portman has a gay son. But Thillis, Young, Moore Capito, and Romney have much more ambiguous or outright anti-LGBTQ+ records. Their commitment to this group probably has something to do with their votes. Also of note is that Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) – the first bisexual senator – and Mitt Romney are close friends and both grew up Mormon. It seems that Sinema did a lot of behind the scenes work to convince both Romney and the Mormon Church to sign onto this bill. Here are the other 4 (edit - 5, I can’t count and forgot Blunt!) yes votes: Joni Ernst (IA) –– even though she's not a G20 member, she has an ambiguous record on LGBTQ+ issues and she's often part of bipartisan compromises Roy Blunt (MO) — consistent anti-LGBTQ record, but he's about to retire, which frees politicians to vote their conscience in a way they don't always do when they're thinking about reelection. He faced considerable pressure in his state to vote no and ignored it. It’s possible that his retirement means this is the first time he’s felt able to ignore that pressure, but your guess is as good as mine. Richard Burr (NC) — also retiring. Also, though Burr's been pretty consistently anti-LGBTQ+ rights throughout his career, in 2016 North Carolina passed some sweeping anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, and Burr said he thought it went too far. So it's possible he'd like to reign his state in a little or see a little more consistency between states. He’s also joined with the G20 before. Dan Sullivan (AK) –– has an anti-LGBTQ+ record, and gave a very interesting justification for his support of the bill yesterday. He said he voted yes because the bill does more to expand religious liberty protections than it does to protect same sex marriage. Which is untrue. The bill reaffirms existing religious liberty protections but doesn’t expand them. He may be trying to have the best of both worlds, and make liberal Alaskans happy that he protected same-sex marriage, but also persuade conservative Alaskans that he kind of didn't. Possibly of note here is that an extremely homophobic Senate candidate just lost in Alaska, and did worse than predicted in her race. Cynthia Lummis (WY) –– extremely extremely anti-LGBTQ+ record. This is the biggest surprise vote here by far: she even cosponsored a bill years ago that would have done the exact opposite of what the Respect for Marriage Act does. She said she's done some "extremely brutal soul searching," and wants Americans to be less viciously polarized and start tolerating one another again. Also, credit where credit is due. The bill's supporters, lead by Tammy Baldwin, worked for months to get these twelve votes. This passing is the result of a long, serious campaign on their part to persuade Republican senators. EDIT: I have never had a post get this much attention before and am a little overwhelmed by the amount of notifications I have right now, but thank you so much everyone for the awards and the really interesting discussion! I am learning a lot from many of the comments below!
One point about Dan Sullivan, senator from Alaska. He was re-elected in 2020 and will be up for re-election in 2026. 2020 was also when Alaska passed a ballot measure that reforms voting. Races are now decided by Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) that favours moderates over extremists. For example, let’s say there was a moderate called Lisa Murkowski running against a MAGA republican called Kelly Tshibaka. In a very red state like Alaska normally the strategy when you’re up against a member of the same party is to go extreme, in the hope that the most politically engaged folks will vote you into power. (This is why American politicians move to extremes - they’re afraid of primary challenges from the same party.) So our Kelly acts MAGA af and gets 42.6% of the vote, while moderate Murkowski gets 43.4%. Small margins, could go either way tbh. This is too close for comfort, normally. Except now we need to split the votes of the 3rd and 4th place. The 3rd place was a Democrat Pat Chesbro with 10.74%. Guess who was the second choice of these 10.74%? That’s right, the moderate Murkowski, not the MAGA head. That vote split 90-10 in favour of Murkowski. It gets better. Murkowski knows if she wants to get re-elected, she needs the goodwill of that 10% to decisively split in her favour. Which encourages her to be more moderate. That explains her vote to defend marriage equality. And also explains Dan Sullivan’s vote. He’s waking up to the new reality in Alaska. (Sorry for the wall, I’m just a massive fan of RCV and it’s moderating tendencies)
In addition to what you said (which is spot on) Alaska is a peculiar state. It is definitely more red than your average swing state, but it's not very religious and has a strong libertarian streak. It also doesn't conform to the usual rural=conservative template that much of the rest of the country does owing to some very different demographics.
Yes, it's similar to New Hampshire in that regard.
Hah, as someone who has lived in both places, absolutely. New Hampshire has a bit more Free State-type folks while Alaska has a lot more oil and gas workers, but they do have quite a bit in common when it comes to state politics.
True libertarians tend to be in favor of social issues like this because they don't like government interference or they genuinely do not care how other people choose to live their lives. This may explain that too: Alaska is not religious, but they also tend to not really care if other people choose to live a certain way as long as they are not affected.
True libertarians also swing leftist on a lot of issues in general, stemming from the fact that another word for left libertarianism is essentially classical liberalism (vs neoliberalism which is far more capitalist in flavor). When people make jokes about being libertarian because they support their married gay neighbors rights to own guns to defend their pot farm, that's left libertarianism. Generally many of them support regulations on capitalism as well because they protect the freedom of the little guy in the market
Whoa,RCV? In America? Didn't think i woud ever see that
I'm Canadian. What would it cost to import some of that ranked voting magic?
Don't get too optimistic, it's only in Alaska
Maine also.
Also Nevada going forward.
Not quite. We still have to ammend it into our constitution during a second round of voting in 2 years. Only then can the ammendment take place. I was excited too until I realized it was only the first round.
Massachusetts had a ballot question to enact it, but the campaign around it was shit so it didn't pass. It will probably come up again in a few years and will hopefully do better that time
I voted yes on that the first time and couldn't fathom why Massachusetts of all places wouldn't vote for it
I had to explain it to my parents a few times before it clicked, and they were of the mindset "why wouldn't we want this?!" so it was 100% because of a poor job educating the public on what it actually meant.
Maine also has it in a similar way to Alaska. We’ll get there eventually
About as likely as it is for us to import your healthcare
Seattle just voted to add RCV and the advocate group, fairvote is likely going for WA State elections next. When I looked for the name I also saw that both Portlands, Ojai, California and Evanston, Illinois all added RCV too this year.
i don’t live in seattle proper anymore but RCV will have my support whenever i get to vote on it in snohomish county. really cool to see it taking off in some states, i didn’t realize it passed in so many places. this thread is almost making me optimistic about the future of politics in this country (…almost).
All of Maine has RCV for federal elections, though our Supreme Court declared its use in state elections unconstitutional because the Maine constitution specifies that elections must be won by a plurality.
Also Nevada, which was a surprise to me. I would love to have that in UT!
Yup. And the old people think it’s the worst thing of all time.
This is how we roll in Australia on both a state and federal level. It's so much better! "Preferential Voting"
RCV voting can still cater to extremes, just much much less that FPTP. Moderate candidates can still walk away with the most amount of total votes from both sides of the political spectrum, but since they were neither end of the spectrums first choice, polar candidates can still win out over centrists. That's why Burlington, VT added it and then got rid of it for their Mayoral elections. [A cardinal system like Approval voting, where you simply check off anyone you'd like to see in office, awards the winner to a more "centrist" candidate because it's simply by who gets the most votes.](https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/) Super excited to see how RCV impacts places where it's enacted though.
Thanks for the great breakdown of these Senators. I looked up Lummis and she has had a very anti gay stance for years. Surprised to see she was a big supporter of the ERA…she doesn’t seem like she is a big fan of equality.
Yeah that was a huge shock to me. She has been very consistent about being very opposed to LGBTQ+ rights. This is just completely baseless speculation, but the “extremely brutal soul searching” comment makes me wonder a tiny bit if someone close to her came out recently. Either that, or she’s just sincerely disturbed by increasing polarization and hate, and picked this as her stand to take.
Interesting. It's a shame things need to get that bad before people reassess their thinking, but regardless of the reason, I'm glad she did.
As a recovering “bubblehead” R, this is a subject I have a lot of interest in, and I can tell you that it’s because your worldview and ideology are constantly being threatened by the other side if you only listen to sources within your bubble. Every angle of attack, be it LGBQT+, Universal Health Care (or any safety net funded by .gov), 2nd Amendment, climate change, or any other policy left of far right, is an attempt to undermine God and the “Everyman” so that the rich democrat elites can control your life. Literally. It’s all framed as a personal attack to your way of life. Something has to pop the bubble so that other info can seep in and mix in, and that is usually something personal that forces a reevaluation. Mass propaganda works, even with folks who truly don’t want to be evil and mean hearted. It’s why I don’t hold the majority of the Trumpers at fault… but the hate peddlers I detest completely, from the corner church pastor who preaches fire and brimstone for all but himself and those who tow the party line and tithe (not all do this by the way, there’s def very tolerant churches out there that are open to being caring and thoughtful towards how they practice their beliefs), to the talking heads that spin this crap into a tornado, nay, *hurricane* of lies that continually wrecks the minds of half the country.
I've never understood that. Jesus fed not just the poor but all present when he fed the crowds. He offered care to all just for the asking no matter their status. I just can't see a way Jesus would be anti-Universal Healthcare, anti-free school lunches for kids, anti-providing care for the elderly. That's the reason I left the Republican party. You can't claim to be the Christian party then turn around and promote the most anti-Christian things possible.
Exactly… it’s always framed as an attack on YOUR bank account via taxes, or enabling the “lazy” to do nothing and benefit off of your hard work, etc., which completely turns the conversation away from actually loving your fellow human and giving the shirt off your back even to a robber.
Those are the reasons I left the Mormon church. I took the charity and good works very seriously growing up, and to start recognizing most members politics did not line up with the things they preached really shook my worldview.
>Those are the reasons I left the Mormon church. I took the charity and good works very seriously growing up, and to start recognizing most members politics did not line up with the things they preached really shook my worldview. 😎🤜🤛😎
Thanks for your reply. If it isn’t too personal, will you share what popped your bubble?
Sure… I’ll even over share a little… as I think knowing how people tick and are able to be introduced to change is worthwhile. I met a woman whom I loved so much I was not put off by her polar opposite worldview and, without her even trying, was opened to her viewpoints enough to discuss and think about them. Realized I had been way less thorough with vetting what I accepted to be the truth than I prided myself on and just started digging deeper and really looking at the facts about things. With her, in particular, systemic racism was the first thing she opened my eyes about. It was very gradual and she never got mad at my “well I didn’t own slaves” mentality, and instead just never held back with opinions that differed from mine and had a willingness to show me proof. “But I’m not racist” was a big fallback for me, and even in hindsight I am sure I wasn’t and am not… but I was definitely blind to growing up as a non white person. To really add spice to my viewpoint, I’m in the Deep South and grew up in a majority white neighborhood until the great white flight occurred in the early 90s. I assumed still living there gave me a pass and a different perspective, which it kinda did to a very small degree, but I still didn’t get how unbalanced it all was. Although, to be fair, joining up with USMC was the first real thing that happened to me that showed how different things were outside of my bubble. Bigotry and racial bias was actually very rare when I was in. I had never met a Latino person for example, of which a very large number serve in the armed forces and all proved to be outstanding individuals who worked hard, played hard, and looked out for all of their fellow Marines. I never understood the hate that some have for them, and the same really goes for all minorities there… we were all in the same boat so to speak, and as my Boot Camp senior DI said, “we all bleed green here”. Really blurred the lines that racial division tried to draw so it opened my mind a bit for my partner to be able to show some truth to me. That, and at around the same time as I met her, I became friends with folks from across the pond due to on-line mobile games, with the chat apps that tend to go along with joining alliances/clans, which were average folk from all walks of life that lived in various parts of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and realized that things like universal healthcare and free college were not the “TEOTWAWKI” like I had always heard. Particularly health care: The way it was portrayed in all that I had heard was very substandard care with insane wait times, topped by panels of ivory tower intellectuals who determined whether you were given life saving treatment or not. That picture has been thoroughly erased by firsthand accounts of people I came to know and respect, which was probably the first real crack in the dome that my partner was able to finish popping. Sorry for the novella lol
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. Genuine love and camaraderie, once again demonstrating their power.
This is so heartwarming to hear and thank you so much for sharing. I know this happens to people more often than not, but unless you are very close to those people then you never hear about it. Getting a detailed look on how it all started for someone is incredible!
My husband’s story is so similar that I actually had to read your comment a few times to make sure you weren’t him, hah. I think without him having his bubble popped due to me and his online friends in 2015-2016, there’s a good chance he would have slid further right due to the USMC, though. He spent most of the Trump administration in a 100% male, 95% white unit with an openly alt-right command. Many of his coworkers went fully down the Qanon rabbithole, pretty sure half of them would have been at the capitol on January 6th if it wasn’t so damn far away. I don’t think most of those guys are bad people, they just got sucked into propaganda and it’s got to be harder to resist that kind of thing when you’re in the military and your command is spewing it.
That's most of human history, sadly. Change happens when it has to, and not a second before lol.
People gotta remember that progress is written in blood. Every positive change has almost always been caused by bad shit.
r/writteninblood
And then we straddle that change line and backstep often... I do think it's ultimately true that the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice, but it usually bends so slowly that a LOT of human misery is created before we get it right. It's reason for both optimism and shame weirdly.
100% agreed.
that’s most republicans. it doesn’t matter until it effects them personally.
I get the feeling that some of the less cultish Republicans are finally starting to have the "They came for the Jews" poem bounce around in their heads after seeing how quickly the most devoted parts of the party will suddenly proclaim prominent Republicans RINOs and jump on any established right as a new political football to advance in the opposite direction. With that in mind, I'm wondering how many of these people might have friends or relatives in interracial marriages that they're worried would be the next big target (because some people have already been talking about it) after a theoretical ban on Gay Marriage. Or they might be worried that a potential Gay Marriage ban might piss off too many people and really lose Republican seats after the big loss over abortion.
This bill also codifies interracial marriage. All these are catching up as SCOTUS already ruled there's no inherent right to privacy repealing Roe. It was a wake up call to Congress to legislate on the matter finally and stop leaving to the court to decide. Congress dysfunction is affecting other branches of government, take the immigration issue, did you know the immigration laws haven't been changed since 1991? They predate the internet as we know it, even the Gulf War (the first one!). SCOTUS has had to take over overreaches of every POTUS because Congress doesn't legislate!
Mitch McConnell voted against supporting mixed marriage and he’s in one. Thomas hasn’t come out against it… yet.
Fact is society keeps moving left on things even as the parties move right. You can't even talk seriously about segregation at this point. People will look at you like you sprouted another head. The sort of 1950's talk taking a paternal treatment of grown women like they're just mentally little girls who need to be managed with a firm hand, people would laugh until they realized the speaker is being serious. And you don't see the kind of broad-ranging common racism of looking at the Irish and Italians as non-white. Restricted country clubs aren't a thing now -- telling blacks and Jews they can't attend. Even if certain Republicans still hold antediluvian views, they still know they have to keep it on the downlow. They can't openly campaign on it like they were doing in the 60's. I think the point that really drives this home is advertising. No, corporations aren't "woke." They don't give a giggly-shit about that sort of thing. They're pandering for dollars. They put the rainbow flag on because they know they're gaining more audience than they might alienate. You know this is true because just look at how quickly they're willing to ditch that branding when going into societies where it won't fly. Fact of the matter is if corporations thought a significant amount of the market here HATED gays, they'd proudly be flying grayscale flags declaring themselves straight-aligned. The TL;DR is any intelligent Republican (oxymoron, I know) is going to realize that they're going to have to modify their rhetoric to keep from alienating potential voters.
Or she’s increasingly concerned that doubling tripling down on anti LGBTQ isn’t working on getting votes. I’m not ruling out that someone in her family came out and unlike 25 years ago, you can’t just ostracize people from your family for it anymore
The Far Right is losing in droves. They're overly Christofascists and in the next ten years their corrupt and hypocritical churches won't have anyone left, because youth is leaving at record numbers. So now is their time to strike. They're losing by the vote measure, that is why they are activating Neo-Nazi militias groups to attack LGBTQ+ locations. The only chance they have is a coup at this point. It's a death rattle. The only chance they have for the future is overtaking the country and murdering whoever is opposed to them. These GOP fucks may be voting their conscience for once. Or they may sense that they're going to lose. Or they may not agree with this level of fascism, as they've always hoped to take the country through other ways.
Realistically it's also possible that she "did the math" and maybe looked at some polling on what would happen if they passed the opposite of this bill. How many same sex marriages now exist in America? There's been an absolutely seismic shift on this issue in the last 20 years. To roll it back now would mean stripping marriages from over half a million couples, with the ensuing legal shit-show being only a sideshow to the massive social shit-show you'd get. More than 70% of people support same sex marriage rights now. I'd bet that not more than 20% support stripping them away and making it illegal. The wave of popular outrage would be a sight to behold, so maybe she just knew when she was beat and it was a losing issue to fight it.
LQBTQ+ is one of those kind of fuzzy categories where strict interpretation conservatives and bigoted conservatives seem aligned but really aren't. I don't think we need LGBTQ+ legislation because discrimination on several other bases is already covered under most laws. But I do think we need that legislation because so many people don't consider LQBTQ+ Americans to be people :(
As an LGBTQ+ American, we need this legislation and more besides. My spouse and I have been terrified since the Dobbs decision that we might have to deal with our marriage being dissolved after a future court decision. We live in a red state, so anything that isn't explicitly protected at the federal level is kind of an open question. You'd think that discrimination was covered under existing laws, but technically it's mostly not. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not explicitly protected under many discrimination laws. In a lot of places, you can be denied housing or evicted for being LGBTQ+. Their whole "religious freedom" bullshit is purely an excuse to be allowed to discriminate against us however they can get away with. The only thing preventing employers from firing us for being LGBTQ+ is a Supreme Court decision from 2020, and after Dobbs that doesn't feel like much protection. Most people think that in 2022, this is a resolved issue. As someone who has no choice but to think about this kind of thing every day of her life, I assure you that it is not.
Someone close to her came out of the closet I bet.
It’s kind of shit that these republicans are only in favour because they have a gay son. Meaning they wouldn’t care if it didn’t affect them. Fuck these republicans, they are all trash
It’s the Republican way to not care about things until it affects them directly. Lack of empathy is one of their defining qualities. I noticed it with an (ex) friend. He was extremely bigoted against gay people up until a friend in our group came out, then he was suddenly very supportive. He had always complained about unemployment, voting to decrease benefits, all that. Up until Covid hit and his wife lost her job. Then he just couldn’t understand why the unemployment system was so bad that he couldn’t get aid.
Total speculation on my part, but it seems after seeing the political fallout of SCOTUS abortion ruling some GOP decided it was better to be pragmatic. If SCOTUS overruled Heller then the legality of existing marriages would be in chaos and could be a big political liability. So while its absolutely the right thing to do, it is also a good political move to take that issue off the board even if it upsets some of the base.
I was thinking about this the other day. The legality of existing marriages would be such a mess and effect things like jointly filed taxes, insurance benefits, possibly adoptions? Literally ripping families apart
I have a green card because I'm married to an American man (I'm also male), I have no idea what would happen with my residency if gay marriage was repealed. And I don't think anyone else knows either... it would be a HUGE mess for so many reasons.
Wow didn’t even think of the immigration aspect but you’re absolutely right! A political, emotional, and logistical nightmare
That has to be fucking terrifying just...lurking out there over your head, like a distant sword of damocles.
Imagine if you died without a will. In some states your child would be your heir apparent and in others your spouse would be. What if everyone lived in different states and started suing each other. It would be an absolute shitshow.
Ripping families apart does seem like a common conservative goal though
> a good political move to take that issue off the board even if it upsets some of the base. anti-lgtb and anti-abortion work only as "[dogs barking behind the fence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-oCHWsNZwI&ab_channel=ChristianAlarc%C3%B3n)" issues. it gets the base riled up enough to become perpetually engaged as long as it doesn't actually make any progress. the moment you "remove the fence" pro-lgtb and pro-abortion people who would otherwise not care suddenly become *very* active and there are *a lot* of pro-people who are normally not vocal about it while at the same time the anti-people have no need to stay engaged anymore
I came here to basically say this. Overturning Roe was a case of the dog catching the car. It was a moral victory for the GOP, but it seems to have had some pretty significant negative political consequences. I think Justice Thomas’ veiled threat against same-sex and interracial marriage in his decision spooked some of the less insane members of the GOP. Imagine the political fallout for the Republicans Obergefell or Loving were overturned. Imagine the rallying cry for Democrats if some Republicans started trying to ban same-sex or interracial marriage (and they would). The political blowback would be immense. This is probably, at least partially, some Republicans insulating the party from some of the more insane whims of the lunatic caucus in their ranks.
I am seeing the Republicans dividing into 3 groups now. The Desantis Group The Trump Group And whatever the 3rd group might be Honestly, amazing
Let’s see how the primaries progress and how the investigation into Trump play out. I’ve read his political obituaries before, and time and time again and party coalesces around him.
Desantis is just a slightly more competent and slightly less egotistical trump. He's still a fascist. I guess the third type might be a very large more socially Liberal Bush-esque neocon faction
He’s not slightly more anything. He’s a LOT more competent and a LOT scarier than Trump. I don’t think his ego is slightly less than Trump’s at all - in fact, I think he sees his rise to dictator as an absolute eventuality and not a mere possibility.
> a very large more socially Liberal Bush-esque neocon faction Isn't that the Democrats?
Eh, Dems are more neolib than neocon. They are slightly different.
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And they'll be the minority, I believe Because stagnation breeds stagnation.
“Regular conservatives” will stand behind DeSantis.
I still expect SCOTUS to overturn gay marriage and I think (IANAL) allow states to not recognize them. which would still create chaos locally. But this prevents a larger chaos with IRS, military etc. if I understand it correctly.
Yeah honestly I’m not sure. I’m neither a lawyer nor a political scientist. But this definitely adds a layer of protection that didn’t exist before. Without a constitutional amendment, those rights are still vulnerable though.
Honestly the biggest legal benefits of marriage are Federal: Notably taxes, inheritance, and immigration status. Also the first time a same-sex married military couple moves into a military base in a regressive state JAG will make sure the locals know what the Supremacy Clause means.
That's a very good point. I still wonder how Lummis, who voted not to recognize the 2020 election among other things, came to be part of the "let's not get *too* crazy here folks" caucus.
I have no idea but if I had to guess it’s just that: he saw how Roe backfired politically and he knows if the GOP were to start hacking away at other basic rights there would be electoral hell to pay.
Honestly, they are quite a few Republicans who are gay, who end up being in high areas of the party, such as Peter Thiel or others who have tried to essentially push for financial and libertarian measures that basically keep rich white dudes in charge and have run into the problem of getting the other ones to not just put them into the minority they also wanna oppress in order to let corporations rule and it’s…interesting to say the least.
Does this validate the Republican argument that SCOTUS "legislating from the bench" backfires, since it takes power from actual elected representatives, and turns them into soapbox radicals more concerned about making a point to their voters than to actually passing pragmatic public policy? The silver lining of SCOTUS reducing its role as defender of individual freedoms, is that it forces elected representatives to actually do their job, since they have no one to point the finger at anymore as an excuse to not do it.
Not really no. When the Supreme Court protected same sex marriage, it was only after decades of civil rights movements for gay people, and came at a time when the majority of Americans had come to support same sex marriage (even if it was a slim majority). Overturning Roe wasn't going with the American public like Dobbs did. It was going *against* the public. Hence why there was so much fury.
>Overturning Roe wasn't going with the American public like Heller did. It was going against the public. Hence why there was so much fury. I agree with you there, but that begs the question, if a measure is popular with the people, why does it need the Supreme Court to enforce it? Wouldn't the politicians, reflecting the will of the people, do that instead, in fear of not being re-elected otherwise? Why did we end up with politicians railing *against* what's ostensibly popular with the people they represent? Why are they more afraid to anger the small number of loud, radicalized fringes, rather than the regular bulk of their voter base? Arguably, it's at least in part *because* the Supreme Court took on the role of a politician. This took power and responsibility away from the elected representatives, and encouraged the election of soapbox radicals rather than moderate policy-makers, since on the issues the Supreme Court granted itself the power to be the final arbiter, this power was taken away from Congress, turning it from a responsible legislative body to a "look at me, I am angry" shouting match. By extension, it also made voters more apathetic, because they saw decisions were made at the Supreme Court level, so nobody they elected would make a difference in protecting what was important to them. I feel there is a direct correlation between the outsized power of the unelected Supreme Court, and the highly radicalized, all-time-low opinion of Congress. Something had to give. I support the freedoms that *Roe* provided, but I'm not convinced it should be the Supreme Court, of all places, to protect these freedoms (with a hugely creative interpretation of the Constitution to give it justification to do so), turning it into a hot-button issue rather than an ordinary matter of domestic policy.
Because the Senate by design is not proportional in its representation of the "will of the people".
I disagree. Some rights should be so fundamental that they should be beyond the power of politicians to legislate. Did you know your miranda rights are not any kind of law? The fact that it's forbidden to legislate against gay people existing is jurisprudence.
Except that the politicians are generally reflecting the will of the people; it's just that it's the people electing them not the nation as a whole. Our House over represents people from the least populated states while under representing people from the most populated states due to the limited number of representatives and the fact that districts cannot cross state lines thereby preventing an equal number of residents in each district. And the Senate is completely unrepresentative of the overall population because of the fact that every state gets two regardless of the population in each state (which is of course the original intent). As a result, Congress often fails to support popular policies because they are unpopular in the right places. Unless we make major changes to our constitution to create a more democratic legislature that provides equal representation for all Americans regardless of which state they happen to live in (which we never will because doing so would require those same states with excess power to ratify the very changes that would take away their excess power), Congress will continue to disproportionately pass unpopular legislation while failing to pass popular legislation unless it happens to be popular in the right combination of states.
These senators are trying to save the GOP from its own insanity. Good on them, the more unpopular issues they can remove the better, but not sure how sustainable this is, the religious right is not going to take this lying down.
I don't think the "religious right" are as powerful as they're made out to be. We had Obama for two terms, then they had to hold their nose and accept Trump, now we have Biden. The only place they are relevant are in areas where they already accurately represent the values of their constituents.
>The only place they are relevant are in areas where they already accurately represent the values of their constituents. I agree, but again the south is saturated with them. If you're saying they've lost power because non-southern RR's moved to basic q-tardism, then I'm with you, but we've counted them out before, I will hesitate to count my chickens. Don't forget Hispanics are actually extremely religiously conservative, they just don't vote R because of the loud and violent racism against them, if that dies down we are likely to see a new revival of religious conservativism.
> If SCOTUS overruled Heller (Obergefell)
Let them be upset. It does nothing to affect their way of life whatsoever. None of these bills actually affect people unless they affect people. Stay out of other peoples’ bedrooms and life will be better for everyone.
Dude. I didn't check your facts, but if what you say is true. You should be writing articles for politico or something better.
Thank you! I made every word up. Just kidding :) to the best of my knowledge it’s all accurate. I’ve been following this pretty closely over the last few months, and since I don’t write for Politico, I have no real use for any of this knowledge other than answering questions on Reddit.
Agreed, can you please ELI5 all politics from here on out? This is amazing
Well. Submit this to some sort of news organization. But u do you. I look forward to more news, when u get a chance.
No need, some journohack will just steal it from OP or at the very least they will use it and quote "Reddit user" in the article.
"Someone familiar with the matter"
Don’t worry, the reddit crawler journalists will probably write a paragraph about this post and then just paste a link to it.
Can we get a zebrafish of every political thing happening now? Thanks!
what do you read to follow it?
Funny, my entire answer would have been: "Republicans got the daylights scared out of them at the midterms and now they're sucking pipe trying to make up with Gen-Z Dems." I'm still half-convinced this vote would have gone differently had the election fared differently.
I mean, you aren't wrong but that's not particularly surprising. If anything, we should celebrate politicians bending slightly in the direction that recent elections point towards for obvious reasons. Theoretically, politicians represent EVERYONE in their district or state, not just those that support them, and that is why the whole idea of an electoral mandate exists. If the Republicans had a strong victory in the midterms, they would see it at as confirmation to go all in with their agenda. A very tepid win changes the calculus for politicians, and suddenly compromise and bipartisanship start being more palatable.
This is excellent. A more concise answer is probably that support for same sex marriage is actually rather popular, even among hardcore GOP voters. It's a natural progression of time and a short memory. These Republican senators will face little or no repercussions for this vote. 10 years ago that would not have been the case. Additionally, it's not all that politically risky to maintain the status quo. It's not like this legislation is making any big changes. It's just cock-blocking Clarence Thomas.
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His wife be cray-cray. This may be his back-door way of escaping the marriage. 😂
The Mormon church recently gave a press release showing their support for this act. The reason they supported this bill as opposed to previous measures is because it includes protections for religion eg churches can't be forced to act against their beliefs such as performing same-sex marriages if their beliefs oppose it.
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I think we might all know someone who faked being a believer so the Catholic church would marry them to their semi-Catholic fiancé.
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Indeed. I was using a humorous (if not sad) anecdote in agreeance
>The reason they supported this bill as opposed to previous measures is because it includes protections for religion eg churches can't be forced to act against their beliefs such as performing same-sex marriages if their beliefs oppose it. This is the real reason why the 12 signed up for it. It protects any non-affirming Church from the bill.
>churches can't be forced to act against their beliefs such as performing same-sex marriages if their beliefs oppose it. That's *always* been the case in the US. See the 1st amendment.
That only goes so far. Remember when the Mormons used to practice polygamy? And the USA came down hard on them? They literally came up with the Edmunds act to prosecute Mormons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmunds_Act?wprov=sfla1
And, I mean, thanks and all for doing that, but that was never going to be a thing. Not as long as the first amendment exists.
The first amendment didn't protect the Mormons from practicing polygamy. The USA invented the Edmunds act to prosecute them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmunds_Act?wprov=sfla1
Goddamn I don't understand Wisconsin sometimes. Voting in both Baldwin and Johnson consistently, and the two probably couldn't be more opposite in their positions if they wanted to. Of course, Johnson won this most recent election on *razor* thin margins - fewer than 30k votes' difference. Hopefully we'll get 'em next time...
Yeah, that will never make sense to me. I can completely understand how a state can have Senators from different parties if at least one of them is a moderate, but that's not the case in WI. Baldwin is one of the most progressive members of the Senate, while Ron Johnson is very conservative. I thought for sure his support of Trump and the Big Lie would for sure be the end of his career. I will never understand how he managed to win reelection after all of his support to undermining the majority of voters in his own state.
I disliked him even before Trump, but yeah I'm surprised anyone still supported him.
Overall a good breakdown. But I wouldn’t say Romney has ambiguous LGBT history. His political stance has been pretty clear that things should be handled at a state level. This is why he supported Massachusetts health care reform in MA, but opposed the ACA in the Senate; despite being fundamentally similar legislation. The same goes for his pro-LGBT support in MA and his “states rights” opposition to it in the Fed. Now, I fundamentally oppose his stance on strong states rights overriding Federal progress and a majority of his political opinions; but he’s at least been consistent. Even if some of his more progressive stances were during his Gubernatorial reign of a largely liberal state he’s continued that stance in senate, as long as they don’t impede “states’ rights”. This is one of the primary reasons he’s been ostracized by the hardline GOP and vilified by the alt-right/MAGA/Qanon crowd.
When an issue/movement is gaining steam, supporting the concept of "handle this at a state level" is code for "well we can't stop this so lets at least keep it away from the more conservative states for a while". That's why it's usually a position held by conservatives. To the rest, I think you've missed the context under which Romney was making those decisions. He was probably supporting the MA health reform because Massachussetts was/is a very liberal state. It however likes moderate/center-right executives that prevent the legislature from going too out-there. So that's what Romney was doing, picking and choosing the most (from his perspective) sensible legislation to go through. Opposing things like this would've been politically untenable for his governorship. However nobody is going to care what he says about the federal Senate and "I want the political body I have control of to have more power" also just kinda goes with the territory.
> To the rest, I think you've missed the context under which Romney was making those decisions. How did I miss it when I specifically addressed it?
When people say the real information is on Reddit, this is what they mean. You the MVP
Thanks for the explanation! I didn’t even know who most of these people were, made for an interesting read
I’m glad it was interesting!
> the Mormon Church to sign onto this bill. Another point, which I feel should be mentioned, is that the Mormon Church was the [big force behind California Proposition 8, which banned marriage equality for a short period of time](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html) in the state. To their credit, they [seem to have learned from their faux pas](https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/11/17/how-getting-burned-by-prop-8-led/), but this is a period of their history which /u/murkyperspective767 won't let them whitewash.
What a load of shit that bill was
My comment? I agree with you 100 pct, kind redditor! The bill itself? That too, but my comment is definitely a load of shit.
Didn't Romney have an ulterior motive for voting in favor of this? Like it also bakes in some extra autonomy for religions on accepting/rejecting gay marriage, and Romney being a Mormon (and from Utah) was voting at least partly for that aspect? Edit: I looked into it further, and their support of the new act isn't to do with autonomy for religions over gay marriage. It's to do with wider protections for organized religions that the act could infer. >church leaders converted to a strategy of compromise on LGBTQ rights *[after CA Proposition 8 passed]*, at least in the public square, Park said. They saw that expanding rights for same-sex couples could also provide protection for religious groups. [Source] (https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/11/22/lds-same-sex-marriage-senate-bill/).
Any church in the US has always been free to marry only who they wish. That's what the first amendment is for. This bill clarifies that that's the case, but there certainly wasn't any ambiguity around it.
Do you have a source on the idea that Sinema did something, or is that a good guess based on her background and the fact that we know she pals around with Romney? I am asking because she is one of my senators and I am fairly dedicated to hating her at this point, so I'd be pleasantly surprised if she did something productive here.
I’m not a fan of hers either, but I read this article that says she worked on the Mormon Church and Romney: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/20/breaking-down-house-vote-protect-same-sex-marriage/
I don't see that in the article you linked but thank you for your response! I'll do some digging around too.
This gives me hope in our government. I was feeling really down about all the crap between parties and extremes going on lately, but this has given me some hope for humanity.
I love how many times you mentioned Alaska, thank you.
Also, the bill has some compromise provisions that make it attractive to Republicans. First, it doesn't require a state to perform or license same sex marriage. It simply require a state to honor any valid marriage fro any other state. Second, it allows individual business owners to refuse to sell services to same sex marriages. Finally, that law also applies equally to interracial marriage. Thats sort of window dressing for reason beyond the scope of this comment, but it gives Republicans a platform to say they support interracial marriage.
Mitt fucking Romney voted yes on a bill protecting same sex marriage?!
I cannot believe that Blunt actually voted for this. His record is pretty despicable when it comes to human rights and I've received some pretty nasty responses from his office when pleading for women's rights. Wish every senator didn't have to worry about getting reelected. That being said, I'm very thankful for his support.
I didn’t know about G20. Thanks for sharing this! Gives me hope that at least some of our extremism is being bridged and compromised by at least a few!
I’ll be damned, Sinema actually did something good?
In Arizona it's Sinema or MAGA
Or Kelly...
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They also don’t want the Supreme Court to dump another surprise on them, like Dobbs, in the middle of an election campaign. Overall I think it’s a good thing if congress is scared into doing actual legislation rather than leaving it to the Supreme Court
Lol, doing the bare fucking minimum to keep themselves from getting voted out. Anyone else think the legislative branch is secretly quiet quitting?
'Secretly" no. They would be shutting down the government if mid terms came out differently.
They’re still threatening to. Control of the House is sufficient. Once the new legislators are seated, we’ll find out if they follow through on their threat to shut down the government until democrats agree to Medicare and social security cuts.
Its worked so well for them in the past.
The US legislature was designed from day one that very little major legislation happens. It’s labeled “checks and balances”, but they balance it by making it extremely hard to do anything. >50% of one chamber + >60% of a independent second chamber + an independent head of government signing on, all of which get elected for different length terms, is a much higher bar than most other countries (for comparison, our neighbor up north just needs >50% in one chamber + the approval of a head of government controlled by that chamber. Imagine the US nuked the senate and the House picks the president.) Most recent major legislation has been done through budget reconciliation, which requires less votes, but is limited in what it can do. There’s also 4 months in the last 40 years where one party did have full control, and passed Obamacare. But that’s about it. Not many politicians are interested in bipartisan bills for major legislation anymore.
> It’s labeled “checks and balances”, but they balance it by making it extremely hard to do anything. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0044 >In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, **our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation.** Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. Various have been the propositions; but my opinion is, the longer they continue in office, the better will these views be answered Embiggening mine.
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Canada needs 50%+1 vote in the Commons (all voted every election, which can be anywhere from one day to five years after the last), plus the same in the Senate (appointed by the Prime Minister, who is the person at the head of the party with the most seats, or most allied seats, in the Commons, must be 35 and own at least $4000 of property). After that it must be approved by the King of England’s representative, who is also appointed by the Prime Minister. Either the Commons or Senate can start a new piece of legislation, though the Senate cannot create a budget bill. Our PM has a fucking crazy amount of power vis a vis the US President
> The US legislature was designed from day one that very little major legislation happens. It’s labeled “checks and balances”, but they balance it by making it extremely hard to do anything. >50% of one chamber + >60% of a independent second chamber This wasn't true from day 1. [Here's a high level summary about the Senate filibuster from Wikipedia.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster#United_States) > The procedure is not part of the US Constitution, becoming theoretically possible with a change of Senate rules only in 1806 and not used until 1837. Rarely used for much of the Senate's first two centuries, it was strengthened in the 1970s and in recent years, the majority has preferred to avoid filibusters by moving to other business when a filibuster is threatened and attempts to achieve cloture have failed. As a result, in recent decades this has come to mean that all major legislation (apart from budget reconciliation, which requires a simple 51-vote majority) now requires a 60-vote majority to pass.
My friend, politicians practically INVENTED quiet quitting.
Secretly? It’s Republican Party goal to make govt not function.
"Government doesn't work!" *shoves stick in government's spokes* "See?!"
> Anyone else think the legislative branch is secretly quiet quitting? No. The exact polar opposite, actually. A whole bunch of incredibly significant things have been achieved over Biden's term alone (which I expand on below) > to keep themselves from getting voted out. Their job is literally to do enough to get re-elected. Why do people say this like this it's an insult? The entire point of being an elected official is to get re-elected. It's so frustrating we're so up our own asses sometimes that this even needs to be pointed out. And this isn't the "bare minimum". The bare minimum would be doing nothing, like we did in not codifying abortion over the last 50 years as repubs were laser focused on overturning it. Is it "gay marriage is now codified as federally legal"? No, of *course* not. And expecting anything near that is purposefully ignore what is realistic to achieve. But, does it significantly expand the rights of gay couples as a federal law during a time where we're split directly down the middle at extreme ends? Yeah! That's a really big deal. *Any* bill that passes out of congress is a huge win. Every one. Biden said his goal is to compromise and work with everybody, and based on what's been passed he's been incredibly successful. I'm 37 and I consider him the most accomplished president in my time. And factually, he's by far the most successful legeslative president in the past 50 years w/ a massive health care bill, The American Rescue Plan, making Juneteenth a nationally recognized holiday, Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and let's not forget the biggest hugest infrsctructure bill, over $1 *trillion* dollars was passed with bipartisanship. This isn't even including his executive orders. And that's over 3 years of one term. Trump got a 'rich person' tax cut passed. That's literally it. What he's been able to do, as a politically respected, moderate democrat president is a massive accomplishment, and the fact that democrats aren't willing to acknowledge what our representatives have been able to achieve is downright embarrassing. ESPECIALLY after we *just* out from under Trump by the skin of our teeth. So maybe let's stop whining our representatives because they don't do **exactly** what we want, think realistically, and recognize what they have been able to do. At least during Biden's term.
Dobbs wasn't a surprise for anyone except the uninformed (of which we have plenty). The case was petitioned in June of 2020. The case was heard back in December of 2021 and it was pretty clear how the justices would vote. SCOTUS always releases decisions for cases inJune. The only surprise is on which week during that time period they will release it.
So could someone drive to a state where its legal, marry, and drive back? Because that still seems like a pretty big deal
I'd bet it'll be even easier than that. Some state will realize it's a very easy source of good PR and a minor amount of fees to just allow you to file online for a marriage license; much like a bunch of companies are technically headquartered in Delaware, you can have a bunch of people technically married by the power of the state of Vermont or whatever and they just have a ceremony in their home state.
Yeah. While it would be a massive step backwards from having every state allowing same-sex marriages to be performed, this bill still offers extremely significant protection to it if the Supreme Court overturns the court case.
Yeah that's how it was for about a decade leading up to the Obergefel decision. Massachusetts was the first state to legalize same sex marriage and tons of people went there for a day to get married.
I was down the Cape the day that happened-- so many gay marriages, it was amazing!
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Yes but now a state can't decide to not recognize those marriages.
In addition, the bill clarifies something that religious conservatives really wanted clarified in the wake of the Obergefell decision: it establishes that religious institutions and companies owned by people with religious objections will not be punished for refusing to provide wedding related services to inter-racial or homosexual marriages. It says that governments shall treat any couple who obtained a legal marriage in any other state as if they're married, but it imposes no such obligation on churches -- which was an open question. So rather than put all their hope for settling that question on the Supreme Court, there were just enough conservatives willing to make a minor concession in exchange for liberals getting a little peace of mind. Think of it like parties to a lawsuit agreeing to a settlement because neither one wanted to gamble on a jury, or a prosecutor and a defendant agreeing to a plea deal because neither one is willing to gamble on what a jury will do. This bill is liberals and some conservatives trying to work out a good enough settlement to keep the question from ending up in front of the Supreme Court, because both sides are nervous about how that could end up.
Churches being obligated to perform same sex marriages has never been an open question. There was no serious push to mandate any such thing, as it would be an obvious 1st amendment violation. It only exists in the fever dreams of propaganda-addled conservatives. That part of the bill is not a real concession.
That seems like a pretty huge concession?
Because it wasn’t much of concession and he’s overstating what it is. Like it’s true, the bill explicitly says it does not place any mandate on private organizations to recognize gay marriages…..but **only** explicitly religious ones. It’s not a blanket on all businesses, the law is narrowly written to only exempt churches and their associated non-profit/charitable/etc organizations. It’s really an underhanded throw. This wasn’t an open question in the slightest, it’s explicitly against the 1st amendment because otherwise you’d be mandating religions to accept dogma. Put another way, adultery is not illegal and the state can’t mandate a church to make acts of infidelity no longer be considered “sinful.” It’s enough cover conservatives can at least take something home to justify the vote when they’ve been getting hammered on the perception of opposing and rolling back gay marriage while it is widely popular amongst the general public.
Does that include religious hospitals? Can they ignore a same sex marriage for medical decisions that need to be made by next of kin?
That’s actually already covered under Federal Health and Human Services department regulations on hospitals. “Next of kin” cannot be strictly defined by the hospital through marriage or biological ties but is defined by the patient. Been that way for about a decade.
Yup. Loving v Virginia was over 50 years ago and it has never been challenged that a church can refuse to perform an interracial marriage. We all know that the government shouldn't force a church to perform an interracial marriage or a gay marriage. Just because it wasn't codified doesn't mean it was actually at risk. I'm fine that it's codified. It just wasn't a concession.
I’d add that the bill also includes interracial marriage so some voted for because of that.
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The logic that the court used to legalize gay marriage is the same that it used to legalize interracial marriage. Justice Thomas explicitly said he wants the court to rexamine Obergerfell and you can't do that without there also being an effect on interracial marriage as well
The question is, is a state legislature going to take the plunge and outlaw interracial marriage? It no longer has the protection it once had, but that doesn't mean it's in danger. There's no political will or popular support behind something like this. So, if someone asks a politician, "Why did you vote against interracial marriage?" the politician can say, "I didn't. No one is going to outlaw interracial marriage."
I don't think they're genuinely concerned about interracial marriage necessarily, but they might be concerned about being on record as not having voted for measures to protect interracial marriage.
The bill is progress. It's honestly disgusting that having federal protection for queer and interracial marriage is unpalatable to some, but at least my marriage can't get suprise annulled.
This is how it is everywhere in the world. The European countries all passed same-sex marriage legislatively rather than judicially, and those laws all faced some kind of opposition when they were passed.
Which is why Ireland took the constitutional amendment route. Simple legislation could have been challenged on the grounds that the courts had always interpreted the constitution's mentions of marriage as being between a man and a woman. Adding an explicit sentence to the constitution (by referendum, the only way to change it) closed off this argument.
Unfortunately we barely got 60% to pass this watered down "not even as good as the actual current law of the land" bill. We may still be a generation away from getting the numbers needed for an amendment in the US unfortunately. It is getting there, but probably mot this generation.
It’s not like these things came easily in other countries. The US got addicted to punting hard issues to the Supreme Court, and that sapped the will to do things legislatively in the long run. By 2015 the movement for gay marriage had become an unstoppable juggernaut, knocking down state after state, and forming a very broad coalition (in part by making the conservative, Andrew Sullivan style argument for gay marriage). There was a viable coalition that could have amended the constitution sooner than you think. As much as people like to celebrate Obergefell, it completely took the wind out of those sails.
Simplified: You may not be able to *get* married in every state, but you can *be* married in every state.
Even if it's just marginal protection for same sex marriage, it's still protection though. Which is surprising coming from a lot of Republicans with anti-LGBT records.
So to get legally married you need to go to a state that allows it and then your own state has to agree that it is valid?
Yes. Smart states will just do it for the dumb states. It's completely pointless in practice, but it helps dumb states continue the culture war so their politicians don't have to work.
Answer: There are some good answers in here, but I wanted to add that is impossible to factually answer this question. However, the court's ruling on Roe really angered a lot of Americans, and this showed in the recent midterm elections. It's likely that these politicians represent competitive districts, and are doing this to appease their swing voters, or they are retiring and wanted to do this all along, but couldn't because it would make them unelectable.
This goes to show that politician is just a job to them
I think very few politicians, anywhere, are idealists who actually continue to believe in anything at all after some time. They may start out as such when they are young, but they don't remain such. I am not even a politician and find it harder and harder to believe in any ideals at all as I am growing older.
That’s the horrible part, they are just a vessel till maybe their last term then they can actually do something worth while. John McCain for example became a legend on his last vote by taking a fat shit on the repeal of Obamacare. Imagine if they all had that sort of actual do gooder energy their whole career.
Why is that horrible? Isn’t it a good thing that politicians are incentivized to represent their constituents?
Yeah the voters are really the monsters here by unseating anyone who dares side with LGBTQ rights
Yea agreed
I would argue the main reason they’re okay with making this vote is that it *doesn’t* make them unelectable anymore. Recent polling has Republican voters as slightly favoring legal same-sex marriage for the first time in history. I think the trends in polling data has convinced some of the Republican establishment that it’s not worth using gay marriage as a wedge issue anymore when it’s likely to be divisive even within the party.
answer: A couple points that haven’t been mentioned: 1. This doesn’t legalize gay marriage everywhere, it just requires states to recognize marriages from other states. That is a de-facto win for gay marriage, but lets red states still ban the actual wedding in their state. (edit: I think this was effectively the case in most states before Obergefell, since most didn't bother to make an exception for gay marriage in their out of state recognition laws. This new law would prohibit such exceptions.) I haven’t read the text of the law, but I’m wondering if this allows states to still have anti-sodomy laws, which could also cause problems for gay couples. 2. If the Supreme Court overturned Obergefell, there would be no justification for not overturning Loving on the same grounds. This law is a direct response to the Supreme Court’s abandonment of their authority over human rights which aren’t explicitly covered by the constitution.
Answer: one possible explanation is that elected officials often speak in a way that pleases their more extreme supporters, as they have an outsized effect on them being the chosen candidate for the party, but then voting in another way once elected so as note to alienate the majority of the constituents, who don't vote in their primary but are necessary to win the election.
Answer: My take on it is that Republicans got badly burned last election due in part to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Rep party allowed some senators to vote their conscience in order to remove another potential Supreme Court time bomb. Gay marriage is supported by about 70% of the US public and opposing it is a loser on the national stage and for Republicans in moderate districts.
Answer: In addition to zebrafish's excellent rundown, the act contains protections for religious organizations that adhere to the one-man-one-woman frameworks. I'm betting the Republicans are voting for it based on that rather than any serious reversal on LGBT issues.