Republican Senators Insist There’s No Need to Protect Same-Sex Marriage Despite Literal Supreme Court Threat

On Tuesday, by a vote of 267-157, the House passed the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation that, among other things, protects the right of same-sex couples to marry. Now it heads to the Senate, and while Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is reportedly working to garner the votes necessary for it to become law, the bill’s passage is not at all assured. We know this because a number of Republicans have been asked for their thoughts on it, and while they didn’t just come out and say, “I’m not voting for this because I couldn‘t care less about LGBTQ+ people” or simply “I’m not voting for it because I’m a bigot”…they might as well have.

Take Senator Marco Rubio, for one. Polled for his stance on the legislation on Wednesday, the Florida senator told Insider he won’t be voting for a bill protecting same-sex marriage at the federal level because “there’s no threat to its status in America.” Which is, you guessed it, categorically false! In fact, the very reason people want to pass the Respect for Marriage Act is because Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas literally threatened last month to overturn the landmark ruling protecting same-sex marriage (as well as the right to contraception and same-sex sexual activity). Yet despite the fact that Thomas and his fellow christofascists on the Court have made it abundantly clear that they’re willing to strip away the rights of millions, Rubio believes anyone concerned about their right to marry the person of their choosing is a hysteric.

Then there’s Senator Ben Sasse, who would also like to pretend that a sitting justice didn‘t recently put a target on same-sex marriage’s back, or that his own colleagues haven’t been out in public saying things like the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage was “clearly wrong.” He also believes none of this is anything to worry about, and that Nancy Pelosi is just starting shit.

Elsewhere, Mitt Romney has said the bill is “unnecessary”; Lindsey Graham has said we can count him down for a “no”; Roger Wicker is a “probably not”; and Chuck Grassley believes the right to gay marriage is the “the law of the land,” and doesn’t want to get into the fact that Roe v. Wade was too less than a month ago. According to HuffPost’s Igor Bobic, “As of today, only 4 Republicans expressed support/openness for codifying protections for gay marriage: [Susan] Collins, [Rob] Portman, [Lisa] Murkowski, [and Thom] Tillis.” Joni Ernst is apparently “keeping an open mind,” and would like people to know she has “a good number of very close friends that are same-sex married.” Thanks to the filibuster, Democrats need 10 Republicans to come over from the dark side for the bill to pass.

Abortion is now banned in Georgia after six weeks

As a reminder, many people don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks. Per CNN: