Questions and Answers about the Respect for Marriage Act
Q: What is the Respect for Marriage Act?
A: The Respect for Marriage Act repeals the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and restores the United States’ historic approach to marriage: states issue marriage licenses and the federal government respects lawful marriages. The federal government should not discriminate against same-sex couples that obtain a marriage license in their state.
Q: What is the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)?
A: The so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) excludes legally married couples from more than 1,100 federal responsibilities and protections, including Social Security and health care benefits.
Q: DOMA passed Congress by an overwhelming margin. Do you really think it can be repealed?
A: Yes. A lot of people are re-thinking their position. When Congress passed DOMA in 1996, most Americans opposed the freedom to marry. Today, a majority supports it. A change of heart on Capitol Hill would just reflect the same change of heart going on across the country.
Q. What is the Obama Administration’s position on DOMA?
A: The Obama administration decided in 2011 it would no longer defend the constitutionality of DOMA, noting that congressional debate during its passage contained numerous expressions of moral disapproval of gays and lesbians – precisely the kind of bias-based thinking and animus the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against. In addition, President Obama supports repealing DOMA and the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act.
Q: Why should the federal government get involved in marriage at all? Shouldn’t we just have civil unions for gay and lesbian people?
A: Civil unions are a second-class status and when people take on all the commitments and responsibilities of marriage they should not be treated like second-class citizens. While these legal mechanisms provide a measure of protections to same-sex couples and their families, they are no substitute for the full measure of respect, clarity, security and responsibilities of marriage itself. They exclude people from marriage and create an unfair system that often does not work in emergency situations when people need it most.
Q: When this question is put before voters—like Prop 8 in California—people usually vote to keep marriage between one man and one woman. Shouldn’t Congress defer to the people on this?
A: We now have state legislatures—in open and honest debate—deciding to end marriage discrimination against same-sex couples. If a state decides to end those exclusions to its citizens, it’s wrong for the federal government to deny them the same federal benefits that all other couples in America enjoy.
Q: Would the Respect for Marriage Act force churches to recognize the freedom to marry?
A: No. The freedom of religion in America means no church or other religious institution has to perform any marriage it doesn’t want to. That won’t change. Of course, no religion should dictate who can get a civil marriage license from the government, or which lawful state marriages the federal government will respect.
Q: Will political leaders who change their position on DOMA or support the freedom to marry face political backlash?
A: The political equation on this question has changed across the political spectrum and across generations. Recent polls show that a majority of Americans support the freedom to marry. Ending unfair treatment in marriage is increasingly the politically smart thing to do as well as the right thing to do.