ST. GEORGE — Congressman Chris Stewart, who represents Southern Utah, joined 47 other Republicans in voting Tuesday to approve a House bill that would take previous Supreme Court decisions that legalized same-sex and interracial marriage and codify them into law.
The Respect for Marriage Act was approved 257-167, with Stewart and the three other Utah Congress members among the 51 Republicans voting in the affirmative along with all 220 Democrats.
The bill would formalize same-sex and interracial marriage into federal law. Interracial marriage was legalized nationwide in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision, while same-sex marriage won the same protection from the high court in 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Proponents of the bill pointed to a concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas in the recent Supreme Court decision, which ended the constitutional right to abortion and allowed states to set laws restricting or banning the practice, saying it puts the legalization of both same-sex and interracial marriage at risk.
In the opinion, Thomas said the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision should cause the high court to “reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents.”
The concurrence mentioned Obergefell as well as decisions that legalized contraception and same-sex sexual relations, and Loving was also a decision determined on substantive due process.
During the debate, opponents of the bill said it was an attempt to intimidate the Supreme Court and also said the bill had not had formal committee hearings.
It’s unclear when or if the Senate will take up the bill.
According to Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute, codifying a Supreme Court decision does not necessarily make it impossible for the Supreme Court to still overturn the previous decision, though the burden becomes harder. Also, a future Congress could overturn the law.
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