Political Quotes

“Madam President, a little later today, the Senate is going to vote on the Respect for Marriage Act. This vote is an affirmation that the U.S. Senate will stand up and protect the rights of all Americans to marry the person they love. Although this is about codifying rights that same-sex couples already enjoy, this is an important step in a long-running battle for equality. During my 1996 campaign for the Senate, I ran on the proposition that there is a fundamental right to privacy in America, and I summed it up by saying ``If you don't like gay marriage, don't get one.'' So I became the first Member of the Senate to openly support marriage equality. Soon afterwards, there was a debate on a truly bad law, the Defense of Marriage Act, which I opposed for the same reasons. It was a breach of our country's fundamental right to privacy. Now the Senate has a chance to rectify that wrong and repeal it. I am always going to go to the mat to defend the right to privacy in America. The bottom line is that protecting somebody else's rights doesn't take anything away from your own rights. Our country is indisputably stronger when everyone's rights are protected. Some Members of this body have questioned why we need to pass this bill when marriage equality is the law of the land. The answer is pretty straightforward. The Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, showed that the Senate cannot take any modern legal precedent for granted. With the possible exception of Brown v.…”