Nancy Pelosi, one of the most influential US politicians in recent decades, will leave the "Speaker" deck of the "House" at the end of the year. She will be one more legislator. But the president of the Lower House leaves with the pride of having given protection to homosexual marriage "as one of my last acts" in office, the third in the chain of government.
"Soon we will send this vital legislation up for President Biden's signature, a glorious triumph of love, freedom and dignity for all."
This phrase can be read in an opinion piece that Pelosi published in 'The Washington Post', just shortly before her mallet resounded in the House, several times, by the way, in a show of celebration, with the exultant comment of "approved ”. There was a great uproar of applause and cheers on a historic day.
Thus it was crowned that this legislation had passed the sieve, with the support of no less than 39 Republican representatives, and ratified last week's vote in the Senate, where there were also a dozen conservatives who joined the Democrats.
Despite the hypocrisy of many, and the homophobia and sexism of others, this will be one of the most transversal laws and with a clear bipartisan coincidence, although it is a matter of religious rejection among conservatives. However, if that border crossing has occurred, it is not for any reason other than being homosexual regardless of political affiliation.
The vote ended 258 to 169, with all the Democrats united, and this means that he has already made his way to the White House for Biden to sign it into law. In this way, a path that seemed improbable for a regulation that only a few months ago had very few chances of being enacted culminates.
This is the second time in five months that this house has approved the marital respect bill, where at the time there were 47 Republicans who sided with the Democrats. This opened an intense negotiating effort by a group of proponents from both parties in the Senate. Behind the strings was a coalition of influential conservative donors, some of them gay, who sought to add at least ten Republican senators necessary for the cause to move forward.
The legislation that came to the Senate from the other chamber was reviewed and various modifications were made, which were required by the Republicans so that the religious freedom of institutions that refused to recognize same-sex unions would not be penalized or restricted.
Finally there was an agreement (vote: 61-36) and thus the final repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 was reached, something that has haunted former President Bill Clinton like a shadow, regulations that denied federal benefits to couples of the same sex. That law defined the marriage bond as a legal union between a man and a woman.
This text was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2013, but its full annulment will prevent the highest judicial body, with a conservative majority, from being able to rescue it.
And this was the great fear that prompted the Democratic initiative, led by Pelosi, after the alarm went off in the country because Judge Clarence Thomas, one of the most ultras on the high court, suggested in June that the Supreme Court "should reconsider” the precedent enshrining equality in marriage, among others (he also cited access to contraception).
Thomas, who introduced that opinion in the judgment annulling the right to abortion, was referring to the doctrine established in 2015 in the Obergefell vs. Hodges, which enshrined the right of people of the same sex to marry: a right that, by virtue of the pact in Congress, will be protected when it becomes law.
This new legislation is not guaranteed as a constitutional right and does not oblige all states to adopt this law and, therefore, they will be able to prevent such alliances in their territory. But this regulation does prohibit those territories from not validating unions carried out in other states.
