Dear John,
 
Did you see the news? Yesterday evening, we voted in the House of Representatives to pass the Respect for Marriage Act. I’m proud to have supported this crucial bill to codify love into law – and I want to tell you why this is so important to me.
 
The Respect for Marriage Act is a bipartisan effort to require federal recognition for same-sex and interracial marriages nationwide. It fully repeals the Defense of Marriage Act, a discriminatory 1994 law that defines marriage as strictly the union of a man and woman.
 
This piece of legislation is coming at a pivotal time. Following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that other SCOTUS precedents should be revisited as well – including the Obergefell v. Hodges case that legalized same-sex marriage. Without federal protection, Thomas’s ruling could result in same-sex marriages no longer being recognized in red states.
 
John, I said it back in 2019 and I’m saying it now: We must treat all our fellow citizens with dignity and respect, and that means granting the same rights to same-sex and interracial couples as everybody else. Love is love, and unlike my 157 Republican colleagues who voted against this bill, I believe Americans deserve the right to choose who to marry.
 
We’ve got more work to do (the bill still needs to pass the Senate), but I promise I won’t stop fighting for marriage equality on behalf of my constituents. 
 
Onward,
Lucy McBath