Katherine Franke in The Nation (Photo by Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images):
State legislatures across the country put a target on the backs of LGBTQ people this year. Lawmakers introduced nearly 200 bills that would criminalize the health care LGBTQ people need and deserve, erase our history and culture, and render our very existence unspeakable. So, it came as somewhat of a surprise that the US Senate, and now the US House, passed a bill to secure marriage rights for same-sex couples. The Respect for Marriage Act requires the federal government to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples, and mandates that all states honor valid marriages from other states—specifically barring states from refusing to validate out-of-state marriages if the reason for doing so is the couple’s sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. The bill now heads to President Biden for his signature.
The bill has an unusual provenance. When the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade last June in Dobbs v. Whole Women’s Health, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurrence that made explicit what was implied in Justice Alito’s majority opinion: By knocking the constitutional legs out from under the right to abortion, the court left nothing for the rights to contraception and same-sex marriage to stand on.
More here.