Federal law protects same-sex and interracial marriages

The Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal nationwide in 2015, but the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act stayed on the books, defining marriage for federal purposes as between a man and a woman. The Respect for Marriage Act repealed that definition and wrote marriage protections into federal law.

Under the law, the federal government treats a marriage as valid if it was valid in the state where it took place. That matters for federal taxes and benefits. The law also says no one acting under state law may deny recognition to a marriage from another state because of the couple’s sex, race, ethnicity or national origin. The U.S. attorney general can sue to enforce it, and couples can sue on their own. Couples don’t need to do anything to be covered.

The law also protects religious liberty: nonprofit religious organizations don’t have to provide services for celebrating a marriage. It does not require any state to issue marriage licenses.

The fight took 13 years. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York first introduced the bill in 2009 with Tammy Baldwin, then a House member, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein carried it in the Senate from 2011. In 2022, a bipartisan group of senators, Democrats Tammy Baldwin and Kyrsten Sinema and Republicans Susan Collins, Rob Portman and Thom Tillis negotiated the final version, which won 12 Republican votes. In the House, 39 Republicans joined every Democrat. President Joe Biden signed it on December 13, 2022.