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President Biden will sign into law Tuesday a bipartisan bill that will codify same-sex and interracial marriages with a large celebration on the South Lawn of the White House.
„Today, Congress took a critical step to ensure that Americans have the right to marry the person they love,“ Biden said in a statement Thursday after the House passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which would recognize marriages federally and across state lines. The Senate passed it earlier.
„While we are one step closer on our long journey to build a more perfect union,“ Biden added, „we must never stop fighting for full equality for LGBTQI+ Americans and all Americans.“
A dozen Republican senators (out of 50) and 39 Republican House members (out of 208) voted in favor of the legislation. That’s far from a majority of Republicans, and it’s reflective of the fact that rank-and-file Republican voters have lagged in support of same-sex marriage.A massive cultural shift on interracial marriage
When it comes to interracial marriage, the country has seen a wholesale change in public opinion and societal acceptance since 1967 when the Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that prohibitions on interracial marriages were unconstitutional.
In 1958, when Gallup first asked the question, just 4% said they approved of marriage between Black people and white people. Through the mid-90s, Americans were still split on the subject.
But by the late-90s and early 2000s, support for interracial marriage soared and, by 2021, approval hit a sky-high 94%.
Back in 1967, just 3% of Americans were in interracial marriages, and that’s up to at least 19%, as of last year, according to the Pew Research Center.Biden’s evolution on gay rights and same-sex marriage
On almost no other issue has American public opinion shifted so dramatically so quickly. Biden, who has a grandchild who identifies as LGBTQ, is included in that evolution.
In 1973, as a young senator, a gay rights activist confronted Biden about discriminatory federal regulations. Biden was taken aback.
„My gut reaction is they are security risks,“ Biden said of people who were gay in the military and Civil Service, „but I’ll admit, I haven’t given this much thought.“
In the 1990s, like many other senators, Biden cast a series of votes that hurt the push for gay rights — from cutting off funding from public schools that were „encouraging or supporting homosexuality as a positive lifestyle alternative“ to the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.
