NC's Tillis says Respect for Marriage Act preserves status quo, is 'a good compromise'

The House will now need to approve the legislation before sending it to President Joe Biden's desk to be signed into law. The House is expected to pass the bill before the end of the year -- possibly as soon as next week.

While the bill would not set a national requirement that all states must legalize same-sex marriage, it would require individual states to recognize another state's legal marriage.

Twelve Republican senators joined their Democratic colleagues in support of it. That included both senators from North Carolina with one even being a key negotiator.

North Carolina Rep. Thom Tillis told WRAL recently that ruling is what changed his position on the issue.

This summer, when the US Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should also reconsider same sex marriage and interracial marriage, since both rulings were based on the same legal argument as Roe Vs. Wade.

That’s when members of congress decided to put the right to marriage into federal law, just in case the high court should decide to reverse that ruling, too.

On the Senate floor Tuesday night, Tillis said the Respect for Marriage Act would simply preserve the status quo. He said it would provide security to the more than a million people in same sex and interracial marriages, while preserving the right of religious organizations not to offer or sanction such unions.

"This is a good compromise," Tillis said. "It's one is that's based on mutual respect for our fellow Americans, protecting the rights of Americans who may have different lifestyles, or different viewpoints."

North Carolina Senator Richard Burr also voted in favor of the measure.

Tami Fitzgerald with the NC Values Coalition accused Tillis and Burr of betraying their voters and their party.

"It puts a huge target on the backs of Christians and other people of faith across the country who adhere to religious beliefs about marriage, that marriage is between a man and a woman," Fitzgerald said.

John Rustin, President of the NC Family Policy Council, shared his thoughts with WRAL.

"H.R. 8404 would repeal the definition of marriage in federal law as the union of one man and one woman, and would invite and encourage legal action—in violation of the constitutionally protected right to religious liberty—against individuals and organizations who hold to a Biblical definition of marriage," Rustin said. "We are deeply disappointed in Senators Burr and Tillis for ignoring the legitimate concerns of citizens across North Carolina and our nation and for supporting this misnamed and harmful legislation.”

Jasmine Beach-Ferrara leads the LGBTQ advocacy group Campaign for Southern Equality. She’s also a pastor.

Beach-Ferrara said the bill will provide a safety net for LGBTQ families worried that their marriages could be overturned by the court – and facing increasing threats of violence, like the recent mass shooting in Colorado Springs.

"We need to be ever vigilant about ensuring that everyone has equal protection under the law," she said. "And that while we're protecting religious liberty, we are not imposing religious beliefs on anyone."

The legislation cleared a key procedural hurdle earlier this month, when the Senate voted 62-37 to break a filibuster.

The bipartisan group, which includes Republican Sens. Tillis, Rob Portman of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, previously said in a statement that they looked "forward to this legislation coming to the floor."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer cited those five senators for their "outstanding and relentless work" on this landmark legislation during a floor speech Tuesday morning.

"For millions and millions of Americans, today is a very good day," he said. "An important day. A day that's been a long time coming."

In a sign of how much support has grown in recent years for same-sex marriage, the bill found backing from GOP senators including those in deeply red states.

Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming told CNN's Manu Raju earlier this month that she voted to advance the Senate's same-sex marriage bill due to "Article 1, Section 3 of the Wyoming Constitution," which she read to reporters and includes an anti-discrimination clause.

"That's why we're called the equality state," she added.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, said the "bill made sense" and "provides important religious liberty protections."

"While I believe in traditional marriage, Obergefell is and has been the law of the land upon which LGBTQ individuals have relied," Romney said in a statement. "This legislation provides certainty to many LGBTQ Americans, and it signals that Congress -- and I -- esteem and love all of our fellow Americans equally."

In the event the Supreme Court might overturn its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage, a state could still pass a law to ban same-sex marriage, but that state would be required to recognize a same-sex marriage from another state.

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