The text voted on Thursday prohibits civil status agents, whatever the State, to discriminate the couples “because of their sex, race, ethnicity or origin”.
Mo12345lemonde with AFP
The US Congress adopted a law on Thursday, December 8, protecting homosexual marriage in all of the United States on Thursday, for fear of returning to the Supreme Court in the matter. The American president, Joe Biden, is committed to promulgating her without delay.
Unions between gay or lesbian people have been guaranteed by the Supreme Court of the United States since 2015. But after the High Court’s historical flip-flop on last June, many progressives fear that this right will Or also unraveled. Already, the temple of law seems ready to authorize certain American businesses to refuse to serve same -sex couples, in the name of freedom of expression. It could decide in this sense in the summer of 2023.
A large majority of Americans support marriage between people of the same sex, including in republican ranks. But the religious right remains mainly opposed to it.
Concretely, the law adopted in the American Congress repeals previous legislation defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. And prohibited for civil status agents, whatever the state in which they work, to discriminate the couples “because of their sex, race, ethnicity or origin”.
Oppositions of 169 Republican elected officials
It was voted by all of the Democratic elected officials and thirty-nine republicans. One hundred and seventy-nine members of the Grand Old Party opposed it. “I think this is the wrong way to follow,” said elected Republican Jim Jordan, a relative of former president Donald Trump.
The text, called “Respect for Marriage Act”, had been approved by the Senate last week. The president of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who will leave her post in January, has rejoiced that “one of the last laws” that she will sign as a speaker protects this type of unions.
In the hemicycle, a few minutes before the vote, she paid tribute to Harvey Milk, the first city councilor of California openly gay, murdered in 1978. “He had said one day to his supporters:” I tasted To freedom, I will not go back “”, she said. “Today, the room stands proudly alongside the forces of freedom, against the backtrack,” said the elected official.