President Biden Signs Respect for Marriage Act
The Respect for Marriage Act will safeguard the rights and protections to which LGBTQ+ and interracial couples and their children are entitled.
It will also ensure that LGBTQ+ youth will grow up knowing that they can lead full, happy lives and build families of their own.
“Marriage is a simple proposition: who do you love? And will you be loyal to the person you love?
It’s not more complicated than that.
The Respect for Marriage Act recognizes that everyone should have the right to answer those questions for themselves.” ~ President Joe Biden
The new law requires states to recognize marriage licenses issued anywhere in the United States.
Vice President Kamala Harris noted that “as attorney general of California, I had the honor of giving the order to allow same-sex marriages to take place across the state in 2013. Now, we continue our progress with the Respect for Marriage Act becoming law.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hailed the new law as “a landmark victory in the fight for full equality enshrining the foundational right to marry the person you love into the law of the land.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), wearing the same purple tie he wore to his lesbian daughter’s wedding, said that “thanks to the millions out there who spent years pushing for change, and thanks to the dogged work of my colleagues, my grandchild will get to live in a world that respects and honors their mothers’ marriage.”
The White House was lit in the colors of the rainbow for the signing ceremony. There were performances from musicians Sam Smith and Cyndi Lauper, who sang her 1986 Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit “True Colors.”
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, whose daughter is transgender, wrote on Twitter that “I was honored to watch as @POTUS honored the fundamental right of Americans to marry the person they love. It means people like my child will have the same rights as everyone else.”
Club Q owner and survivor Matthew Haynes blasted Republicans for voting against the Respect for Marriage Act, saying by doing so they were sending a message that it “is OK to disrespect and not support our marriages. We are being slaughtered and dehumanized across this country in communities you took oaths to protect,” Haynes said. “LGBTQ issues are not political issues. They are not lifestyles. They are not beliefs. They are not choices. They are basic human rights.”
