The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Jay Richards on What's in Senate's Same-Sex Marriage Bill, Why It’s Threat to Religious Freedom

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

The U.S. Senate is considering legislation that could have dire consequences for religious freedom.  The so-called Respect for Marriage Act goes beyond codifying same-sex marriage in federal law to make the acceptance of gay marriage compulsory.  “The so-called Respect for Marriage Act will just simply lead to more attacks on Americans' religious liberty,” says Jay Richards, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.) Richards joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the bill and why it poses a threat to Christian organizations and anyone else who holds to a traditional view of marriage.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Sentinel podcast for Wednesday, November 23rd. I'm Virginia Allen. The Senate is considering a bill that could have dire implications on religious freedom. The bill is called the Respect for Marriage Act and goes very far beyond gay marriage to make the acceptance and even endorsement of gay marriage compulsory. Jay Richards is the director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family, and a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He joins us here on the show today to discuss the bill and why it poses a threat to Christian organizations and anyone who holds to a traditional view of marriage. Stay tuned for our conversation after this. Want the inside scoop on what's happening here at the Heritage Foundation? Check out Herd at Heritage and all new show replacing the Heritage Events podcast.

It'll feature cutting-edge analysis and thought from leading experts in and across the conservative movement and of course the Heritage. Foundation's premier events and programming brought straight to you. Check it out at heritage.org slash podcasts. Last week, all 50 Democrats in the Senate and 12 Republicans voted to start debate on the so-called Respect for Marriage Act. Jay Richards is the director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family, and a senior research fellow here at the Heritage Foundation. And he says the bill being considered in the Senate would be more accurately named if it were called the disrespect for marriage act. And Jay, Richard, joins us now to talk about this.

Jay, thanks so much for being here. Thank you, Virginia. We're not on the problematic women podcast right now, are we? No, we are not. We're on the daily single podcast. I just wanted to verify that. I didn't have the details. That's good to verify.

Okay, okay. Carry on. Jay, earlier this year, the House voted on and passed the so-called respect for marriage act. So now the Senate has agreed to take this bill up. explain what exactly this act proposes. Okay, so essentially what this does is people will remember that the Supreme Court in Obergefell in 2015 basically struck down all state laws that define marriage as between one man and one woman, right?

And so there's this big debate. What is marriage? Is it an actual thing in the world? Is it a social institution based upon the complementary nature of male and female, but namely because it takes them one male and female to mate and to have and to bear? kids. And so we recognize as a society, an interest in having those kinds of institutions. Or is it, you know, just a contract or relationship between two or more people of whatever composition for romantic reasons, right? That's the debate. And so essentially the Supreme Court said,

no, states don't get to define marriage as natural marriage. They have to sort of allow, you know, different sorts of arrangements. And some states already had that. But behind this is really that question, whether marriage is a real thing or not, and if it's a real thing, should the state be able to recognize it as such or not? So we're in a situation now where the states literally can't recognize marriage as this institution rooted in our biological natures. The respect for marriage act would sort of take what was a Supreme Court interpretation of arcane constitutional rules that they discerned and make it the law of the land. So a federal law basically saying, look, all states have to recognize this, and they have to recognize marriages

defined as marriage in one state in their own states. So there's really like if you're in a so-called same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, if the respect for marriage act is passed and signed by President Biden, this makes absolutely no practical difference in your life at all. It does nothing that you don't already have. So the question is, why? are the Democrats and a bunch of Republicans doing this? Yeah, that is the question. And we're hearing from those who are advocating for the so-called respect for marriage act. Their rhetoric is really what this does is it codifies same-sex marriage in DeLoth.

That's it. Is that accurate? No, it does do that, of course, and it's called the Respect for Marriage Act. And so they know that's important. But first of all, why would they need to do that? It doesn't make any sort of practical difference, one, but even two, if they're going to do that, we should say, okay, what happened after a Burgerfell? What happened after a Burgerfell is lots of people, Barronel Stutzman, the florist in Washington State,

masterpiece cake shop owner Jack Phillips in Colorado, got badgered and punished legally because of their, they maintained views of natural marriage in their cases for religious reasons. So their religious liberty, to practice their faith in their work, was challenged legally. So all the way to the Supreme Court, Jack Phillips, he wins, and then, of course, the state recharges them in some other way. And so we already know that's a problem under Obergefell. So if we're going to now codify this, you know, as a federal law, you'd want the law to be really clear that it provides religious liberty protections. it doesn't do that. It has a fake fig leaf amendment that we're told will provide religious liberty protection. What it really does is it provides protection for a priest in a church. So if you're a

priest practicing the sacrament of marriage in a Catholic church, the state's not going to force you to do a same-sex marriage. But what if you're a Catholic or an evangelical Christian or a Muslim in your workplace and you're being forced to participate. Well, there are no protections for that. There are no protections for the Jack Phillips and the Barronill Stutzman's of the world. And so what we think is that the so-called respect for marriage act will just simply lead to more attacks on Americans' religious liberty. And that's why we oppose it. Okay. So churches, just to parse us out a little bit more, churches would still be protected and wouldn't be forced necessarily to marry same-sex couples. That's right. But a business.

like say a pregnancy center. A pregnancy center. Not protected. That's right. So individuals in normal lines of work or religious organizations that aren't churches, right? So think about adoption agencies. This has already happened, right? So you have a Catholic adoption agency that wants to place children in homes with a married mother and father.

Suddenly they could be in conflict with the law, right, violating some same-sex couples civil rights. rights under this interpretation as a result of that. So that's the problem is that, okay, fine, of course, you're not going to force the priest in his church to perform a same-sex marriage, but there's a heck of a lot of other religious free exercise happening in society that would almost certainly be abridged as a result of this law. Okay. So let's get back to that question of why. Why is this being pushed forward? And let's add who to that. Who is pushing this Are there certain individuals, are there certain groups that are really backing this bill? Absolutely.

Absolutely. So of course the usual suspects, the ACLU, the human rights campaign, so organizations that you call it the LGBTQ plus lobby are of course behind this. You know, I mean, you can't say that it's sort of the advocates for same-sex marriage because they kind of got exactly what they wanted under Obergefell. happened is that we've gone from, okay, it should be allowed to, it should be compelled to bake a cake, bigot. I mean, and that's where we are now.

And so I honestly think that part of this is about spite. It's about punishing recalcitrant people of conscience and religious belief who simply disagree about this recent move to redefine marriage, which is exactly what it is. I mean, marriage is a perennial institution that's existed in every culture, at every time in place. involved a man and a woman. The one variation would probably be polygamy. This was not even a contested question until recently. So suddenly, just because there's a kind of a legal agreement to do this, doesn't mean everyone has to go along. This is about forcing people to sort of surrender their

expressions of belief on marriage if they contradict the current orthodoxy. I think ultimately that's really what this is about. And Senator Mike Lee, he's weighing in on this pretty heavily. He wrote a letter to his fellow senators about the act. And in the letter, he says that the act gives the Department of Justice the right to sue institutions that oppose same-sex marriage. Is that accurate? That's exactly right. That is exactly right. So basically institutions, because the Department of Justice, of course, they can't go in and do something that's in the state's jurisdiction.

But when you violate someone's civil rights, that's a federal offense. And so the Department of Justice comes in. I mean, it's designed to do this. and for people who say, well, they're already religious liberty protections. Okay, well, if so, Senator Lee introduced an amendment with very specific language to protect individuals and organizations in addition to churches. And it wasn't accepted, right? So if they're really serious about religious liberty protections, why did they not adopt the Lee Amendment? I think that that really exposes the folks on the other side.

they're actually not interested in preserving religious liberty. And the apologists who claim that, the Republicans who at least initially, you know, signed, agreed to push this forward for debate. Commentators, frankly, like David French, who claim it's fine. At best, they're being extremely naive. And I think I'm perfectly happy being on the record that they're wrong and that this will get used to violate people's civil rights or religious rights and will see it happen in the near future if this becomes law. So Lee also notes that Obergefell did not make a private right of action for aggrieved individuals to sue those who oppose same-sex marriage, but he says this act does. That's right. So if this bill passes, can one individual sue another individual?

That's right. Exactly. So take Jack Phillips, right, for an example. So he's a masterpiece cake shop in Colorado. he's gotten in trouble because of this Colorado Civil Rights Commission that has gone after him. But it's not individual customers suing him. Under this, it could be individual customers who want to force him to, say, to design a cake that is, you know, say for same-sex marriage or it could be something else.

And if he doesn't do that, he could be sued again for violating their civil rights. So he could get in trouble by the Department of Justice and also by individual citizens who could sue him in civil court. So that's a double whammy. Wow. And the amendment that Lee introduced in trying to add those protections, that's been... No, nowhere at the moment. Yeah. And so honestly, I think here's the key thing. I mean, so at the moment, we've got 12 senators who at least agreed to the vote. So they overcame the filibuster. I'm hoping that some of them will say, okay, well, I agreed to a vote so there could be a debate on the assumption that there would be good religious liberty protections in the

amendment process. And then if that does not happen, they will not vote for cloture or certainly for the final vote when it comes up for that. Okay. And who are those Republican senators who are, as of right now, appear to be kind of backing that? Yeah. And so I can tell you, the 12 Republican yes votes in the kind of the initial vote were

blunt from Missouri. He's retiring. Burr from North Carolina is retiring. Capito, West Virginia, Collins in Maine, Loomis and Wyoming, Murkowski in Arkansas, Portman in Ohio, Marcosky in Alaska, rather, Portman in Ohio who's retiring, and then Romney, Sullivan, Tullis, Ernst, and Young. Okay. And do we know why they are voicing some sort of support for this, why they appear to be backing

it when it seems like it's very opposed to religious freedom? Yeah, for vague reasons. I mean, I honestly think if I were to play a little mind reading is that a lot of Republicans, they don't think this polls well in their favor, which it probably doesn't at the moment. They imagine that this will take the marriage debate off the table so that Republicans do better when we're talking about other issues. And if we go ahead and surrender on this, then it'll take the debate off the table. They're totally wrong.

It will not take the debate off the table. It's just going to radicalize the other side. and they'll move on to the next thing. So where does this bill stand right now? When are the next votes? What do we expect? Yeah, and so I don't remember. I think the next vote, there's another one, I think, coming up on Monday.

But we're basically in the process of debate. There still need to be, I think there need to be a couple of other votes, basically to actually bring it up so that they can then go to the full Senate for a vote. And so there are a couple of other opportunities for it to get blocked by filibuster before it gets to the final vote. Because, of course, when it gets to the final vote, they won't even really need the Republicans. So that's what we're hoping,

that a few Republicans will see the problems that we see in the next few days and will not continue to support it. Yeah. Is there anything that the American people can do to spread awareness and make their senators aware of what's really in this business? Yeah, absolutely. And so go to the Heritage Foundation.

We've got materials on this. You can look at pieces, actually, the Daily Signal on it. And if you're in Missouri, North Carolina, West Virginia, Maine, Wyoming, Alaska, Ohio, Utah, you know, North Carolina, Iowa, Indiana, call your senator and call his or her office and tell them what you think. The more people they hear from, the better. Jay, want to give you just a final word. Anything else that you think the American people really need to know about this bill? Absolutely. views on same-sex marriage per se, you should oppose this bill if you also believe in

robust religious liberty protection and think people ought to be able to express their religious beliefs, not just behind the walls of a church, but in the workplace. If you believe that, you should oppose this bill. Jay Richards of the Heritage Foundation, Jay, thank you so much for time today. We really appreciate it. Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode, but that is not all for today. We have a special Thanksgiving bonus episode releasing at noon today, which you can enjoy on your drive to see family or friends or maybe as you're taking a flight.

I'm going to be sitting down with Hillsdale College Associate Professor of Politics, Dr. Adam Carrington. We talk about the history of Thanksgiving and whether it's truly a religious or political holiday or maybe a bit of both. And if you haven't gotten a chance in the meantime, make sure that you take a moment to just leave us a rating and release. review. We love hearing your feedback. It's so helpful for us wherever you like to listen, to just leave that five-star rating and share your thoughts with us about what you're liking, what you'd like to see done differently. Thank you all again for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Be sure to check out the noon Thanksgiving special bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. And then we'll see you right back here for our normal shows on Monday.

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