OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden and his administration have been taken to task again by critics after he signed a bipartisan bill codifying marriage between all people in every state into federal law. As Biden signed the “Respect for Marriage Act” on Tuesday, the White House was lit with rainbow colors, prompting pushback and criticism on social media.
“The bill requires that marriages that are valid under the laws of any one state be recognized as such by every other state,” the Western Journal reported. “The bill repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which declared marriage to be between one man and one woman and allowed states to reject marriages other states ruled valid. The law was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2015 in the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, but had remained on the books.”
Several people slammed the vision of the White House being lit in colors symbolizing one interest group, LGBTQ activists, with one user on Twitter describing the spectacle as the “tyranny of the twisted.” Another user noted that “the world is laughing,” while still another wondered what the nation’s founders would say. Still another fumed: “Now we’ve seen it all.”
Shocking. And stealing God’s rainbow. This is tyranny of the twisted. “House glows rainbow colors after Biden signs Respect For Marriage Act”https://t.co/LWwKbqP1Ho
— Kevin Shipp (@Kevin_Shipp) December 14, 2022
A rainbow White House. Now we've seen it all 🤦🏻♀️🌈
Imagine if the Founding Fathers could see the woke insanity that is sweeping across America and the rest of the world. pic.twitter.com/0S7qFtK3cj
— Kobie Thatcher (@KobieThatcher) December 14, 2022
“My tax dollars hard at work as usual. I thought that when I filed my taxes that I could choose to donate to campaigns. Now you just do it?” another user wrote.
Without question, the display played to a key Democratic Party constituency, as noted by a report from the pro-LGBT Human Rights Coalition last month, which noted that 81 percent of LGBTQ voters who took part in the November House elections voted for Democrats.
During the signing ceremony, Biden read from a prepared speech that slammed Republican-led states that limit gender transition surgeries, which are permanent, in children.
“Today, I sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law, deciding whether to marry, who to marry is one of the most profound decisions a person can make,” Biden said, as reported by Fox News.
“For most of our nation’s history, we denied interracial couples and same-sex couples from these protections. We failed. We failed to treat them with equal dignity and respect. And now law requires interracial marriage. And same-sex marriage must be recognized as legal in every state in the nation,” Biden — who once complained about his children growing up in a “racial jungle” — noted further.
“We need to challenge the hundreds of callous, cynical laws introduced in the states targeting transgender children, terrifying families and criminalizing doctors who give children the care they need,” he continued.
Earlier this month, the Democrat-controlled House paved the way for the passage of the legislation.
The measure passed 258-169, with 39 Republicans supporting it, and will represent one of the last major pieces of legislation to make it out of the House before Democrats hand over control of the chamber to Republicans in January after the GOP won a majority during the November midterms. The National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense spending bill, and an omnibus government funding measure, are reportedly in the legislative pipeline as well before the House recesses for the holidays.
The Daily Wire notes:
The bill would not force states to allow same-sex couples to marry under the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision. It would, however, make it so that any “person acting under color of State law” fully recognizes marriage between two people in another state and that the federal government must recognize marriages if they were valid in the state where the marriage occurred.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said when the lower chamber passed a previous bill version, “it is critical to ensure that federal law protects those whose constitutional rights might be threatened by Republican-controlled state legislatures.”
“LGBTQ Americans and those in interracial marriages deserve to have certainty that they will continue to have their right to equal marriage recognized, no matter where they live,” Hoyer noted.
Previously, the Senate managed to overcome the 60-vote filibuster and pass the legislation on a vote of 61-36, with most Republicans in the chamber again voicing concerns that the bill will impact First Amendment-protected religious freedoms and choice.
