Political Quotes

“I would like to applaud the House for passing the Respect for Marriage Act with significant bipartisan support earlier this summer. It is now the time for the Senate to do the same. I would like to take a moment to speak to my Republican colleagues who have said marriage equality is ``a nonissue'' right now. Some of my Senate colleagues have said things like: It's the law of the land, so passing legislation is not a good use of Congress's time. As we saw this summer with the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, hard-fought rights are still always vulnerable to repeal. We must also remember that in a concurring opinion to the Roe v. Wade repeal, one Supreme Court Justice explicitly called for the Court to reconsider and overturn Obergefell. We must act now so that no matter what happens in the courts, married same-sex and interracial couples are protected. Overturning Obergefell and Loving would return the country to a patchwork of State laws where couples could be subject to State- sanctioned discrimination. Many States still have bans on same-sex marriages on the books that would immediately take effect if marriage equality were overturned. I would also like to touch on how far-reaching the legal ramifications of overturning Obergefell and Loving would be. Without the Respect for Marriage Act, if a married same-sex or interracial couple lived in a State that decided to ban their union, their marriage could be invalidated.…”