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Senate Republicans want Democrats to water down the Respect for Marriage Act [1]

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Date: 2022-08-04

The first Republican avoidance strategy was to refuse to say how they would vote while Democrats chased their votes. Democrats didn’t want to bring the bill to the Senate floor until they had 10 Republicans lined up, and many Republicans didn’t want to publicly admit that they would oppose it, so they said things like “I'll see if it comes up, and then I'll make a decision,” and Democrats didn’t call that bluff.

Then Collins said that the Democratic deal on a completely separate issue, the Inflation Reduction Act, was "a very unfortunate move that destroys the many bipartisan efforts that are under way."

And now Republicans want changes to the bill, lest they might have to acknowledge someone else’s marriage as real and valid violate religious freedom.

At Talking Points Memo, Sarah Posner explains why Republicans are so reluctant to get to a vote on marriage equality: On the one hand, Gallup finds 71% support for same-sex marriage. But on the other hand, the single major religious group that opposes marriage equality is evangelical Christians, also known as the Republican base, and right-wing organizations have been lobbying hard and issuing threats. These organizations have a long-term goal of getting the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, and they’re not going to sit back while Congress ruins that.

Republicans are between a rock and a hard place, and it’s time for Democrats to start pressing that rock closer to the hard place. Consider this: According to Gallup, support for same-sex marriage is substantially higher than opposition to overturning Roe was. It’s higher than self-identification as pro-choice. This is a winning issue for Democrats in addition to being the right policy move. If Republicans are going to oppose it, make them show themselves in a vote. Don’t let them weasel and squirm their way out of having a vote at all.

We need your help to write 10,000,000 letters to infrequent but Democratic-leaning prospective voters in key congressional districts and Senate swing states this election, urging them to exercise their right to vote. Sign up with Vote Forward and join the most popular and effective Get Out the Vote (GOTV) activity in Daily Kos history.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/4/2114508/-Senate-Republicans-are-squirming-over-marriage-equality-vote-Time-for-Democrats-to-force-the-issue

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