Respect for Marriage Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle paint with a broad brush stroke the language offered by Justice Clarence Thomas, a Justice whom I consider to be a friend, a great defender of the Constitution, and a great member of the United States Supreme Court despite being pilloried by the left and laid out as something other than the great patriot that he is.

In his concurrence, Justice Thomas wrote: ``After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated. For example, we could consider whether any of the rights announced in this Court's substantive due process cases are `privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States' protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.''

Now, we could have a robust debate in the Judiciary Committee about this whole issue. We didn't do that. This bill was dropped on the body yesterday afternoon, an hour and a half before Rules. I went and testified before Rules, but we had no benefit of a debate in Judiciary Committee to have a deep discussion about this issue, about the constitutional implications. Nor did we have the ability to debate the reality that the words that this codifies Obergefell and Loving are simply false. It does no such thing.

I do think in this case, as the chairman pointed out, that it is a full faith and credit recognition issue, but a lot of the rhetoric coming from the left is that this somehow codifies those two opinions. It does not.

It does not do that because those opinions recognized rights under various legal theories, one of which is substantive due process, which Justice Thomas is pointing out he has concerns with because Justice Thomas has concerns with how we make law and how we recognize law. He has concerns about that, the how. It matters, and that is what Justice Thomas laid out. He never said anything about his conclusion on those specific questions but rather the how.

As my colleague from Ohio and my colleague from Louisiana both adequately laid out, the majority opinion lays out very specifically their view about the implication of the Dobbs opinion on these other recognized rights under the previous precedent of the Court. But I think it merits noting that while we are here talking about the substance of the issue that it does matter when the Court steps in and makes law because we end up where we are right here. We end up in a situation with difficult decisions.

For example, when does life begin? When does it begin? When do we have a duty to protect that life?

We could have a very robust debate here in this body if we ever actually debated on the floor of the people's House, but we don't.

When does life begin? It is a complicated question. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't really want to have that discussion, right?

Does life begin at birth?

Does life begin before birth?

You say, Well, it is up to the mother. Well, it is not up to the mother a week after birth. We, society, protect that life, right?

So the debate is: Do you protect that life a week before birth? Do you protect that life at conception? These are actually, difficult complex questions involving faith, involving values, involving life.

But, no, no. We can't have a debate about that here and have a reasoned debate because the Court plucked that out from the people, and the Court manufactured an opinion to define when life begins and how we should deal with it.

Now, we are talking about other issues, talking about marriage. We have had opinions that deal with marriage.

Now, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to put forward a bill that is clearly political in nature.

They don't want to talk about inflation. They don't want to talk about wide-open borders. They don't want to talk about rampant crime. They don't want to talk about the state of this country, in decline, heading into a recession, where people are hurting across the country. They don't want to talk about that.

So they bring forward a political bill. And then they want to take different issues and policy choices, marriage, marriage based on race, marriage based on sex, that this body didn't define; that State legislatures did define in varying disagreeable terms across the Nation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ROY. The court steps in in 2015 and now, we are 7 years into recognition of same-sex marriage. And we can have a debate about the policy of that decision, but the Court steps in and says, there you go.

And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to purposely, for political reasons, conflate lots of different issues.

And I think it is important that my colleagues on this side of the aisle understand what we are doing here today; that we are going to vote on the recognition of marriage, as a body, as representatives of the people. Okay?

Separate from whatever decision a court may make, we are going to make a decision here about the recognition of marriages across State lines where there are differences of opinion still to this day about how one defines marriage.

In the name of full faith and credit, you will go to the people of Texas, by our elected Representatives, to my Republicans on this side of the aisle, Republicans will be voting on this floor today on the question of whether the Federal Government should tell Texas what marriages they have to recognize, irrespective of what the Court has said.

That is a vote; that is a choice; that is a decision. We should not hide behind the use of the Equal Protection Clause with respect to marriage not being impacted because of race, to then say that marriage must be recognized for same-sex purposes by a vote by the body, by the people.

It is a choice, and we should understand that today, and we should understand what we are voting on since we never had the luxury or the benefit or the responsibility of debating this in the Judiciary Committee where we should have debated it.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source