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Floor Speech
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Ms. LUMMIS. My days since the first cloture vote on the Respect for Marriage Act, as amended, have involved a painful exercise in accepting admonishment and fairly brutal self-soul-searching--entirely avoidable, I might add, had I simply chosen to vote no.
The Bible teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman. I accept God's Word, including God's Word as to the definition of marriage. I support my church's adherence to that Biblical pronouncement. I support Wyoming statute which codifies that definition. I find solace in people and organizations that share my beliefs.
I, and many like me, have been vilified and despised by some who disagree with our beliefs. They do not withhold bitter invective. They use their own hateful speech to make sure that I and others who believe as I do know that we are hated and despised by them. Americans on the other side of this issue can relate to ill treatment as well.
So why have I strayed with such anguish from a path that conforms to my beliefs, my instruction, my faith, to vote for the Respect for Marriage Act? The answer to that question lies in our history, in how we got here as a nation and as a people, and in where we are as a nation and as a people today.
In the 1600s, colonizers Roger Williams of Rhode Island and William Penn of Pennsylvania cited Scripture and the Protestant reformers to defer to God as the judge of conscience.
Williams referred to religious liberty as ``liberty of the soul.'' The charter of the Colony of Rhode Island required religious tolerance, ``that all may . . . freely and fully have and enjoy his and their own judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments.''
George Whitefield's groundbreaking message, without which these United States never would have come into being, emphasized an individual's personal relationship with God, where previously the individual deferred to the church. These became foundational for our current American approach to the relationship between church and state.
In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Obergefell decision, established a constitutional right to same-sex unions, using the term ``marriage.'' Tens of thousands of same-sex American couples have married in reliance on that Supreme Court decision.
The term ``marriage'' now has two meanings: the Biblical and the secular. The Respect for Marriage Act, by design, references neither definition. It uses the term ``individuals.'' The act recognizes that both definitions exist and codifies that a marriage legally entered in one State will be legally accepted by the others. Further, the act provides protection from persecution by a government authority toward a church and its organizations of religious instruction that adhere only to the Biblical definition.
These are turbulent times for our Nation. Americans address each other in more crude and cruel terms than ever in my lifetime. It is jarring and unbecoming of us as human beings. It is highly intolerant, and, frequently, the most so when expressed by those who advocate for tolerance. Many of us ask ourselves: Our Nation is so divided. When will this end, and how will it end?
Just as when our Nation was founded, when the New World tore itself from the old, people of diverse faiths, beliefs, and backgrounds had to come to terms with each other, had to tolerate the seemingly intolerable about each other's views, and had to respect each other's rights, even before the Constitution enumerated those rights. They had to tolerate each other in order to survive as a nation. Somehow, most certainly with divine guidance, they did.
For the sake of our Nation today and its survival, we do well by taking this step, not embracing or validating each other's devoutly held views but by the simple act of tolerating them. And that explains my vote.
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