Identical-Intercourse Marriage Invoice Is an ‘Absolute Abomination’ for Non secular Liberty, Chip Roy Says

The Home of Representatives handed the Respect for Marriage Act, 258-169, on Thursday and it now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk. The measure, which seeks to codify the legalization of same-sex marriage into federal regulation, has come below assault from Republican lawmakers who see it as a risk to non secular liberty.

“It’s an absolute abomination with respect to… spiritual liberty,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, informed reporters after a press convention on his Texas border plan this Thursday. “It’s purposefully undermining spiritual liberty.”

Roy launched an modification within the Home which might have provided spiritual liberty protections for many who see marriage as a union between one man and one lady. The modification failed after Home Guidelines Committee Chairman Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., blocked Roy’s modification from transferring to the Home ground in a Monday listening to. McGovern didn’t reply to The Each day Sign’s request for remark.

In separate feedback to The Each day Sign, Roy expounded on the invoice’s threats to non secular freedom.

“As we speak, Congress handed a regulation that violates the very core of the First Modification, the Structure, and the rights we maintain pricey as People,” he mentioned. “The so-called Respect for Marriage Act will lead to predatory, activist lawsuits in opposition to good individuals of religion for merely residing out their lives in step with their beliefs.”

“The anemic spiritual liberty protections within the Respect for Marriage could be laughable if the stakes weren’t so excessive,” he added. “In good religion, I provided a standard sense resolution, an identical to the bipartisan modification provided by Senator Mike Lee. It will have prohibited the federal authorities from discriminating in opposition to People primarily based on their views on marriage, however Democrats on the Home Guidelines Committee blocked it.”

Roy framed the invoice’s passage as “one other instance of how Congress is damaged.”

“Earlier than the Guidelines Committee listening to on Tuesday, not a single committee held a listening to, heard from witnesses, or deliberated the main points of this laws,” he mentioned. “Till we essentially change how we do enterprise right here, we’ll proceed to fail the American individuals.”

“I provided an modification,” Roy informed reporters Thursday. “They shut it down on a technicality below a price range level of order.”

The Senate handed the Respect for Marriage Act, 61-36, final week. Twelve Republicans voted for the invoice. The Senate handed the invoice with out the spiritual liberty modification proposed by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, although proponents of the invoice added protections for “spiritual service and solemnization of marriage.”

However there’s “no indication” this spiritual liberty provision would defend individuals of religion, Roy mentioned Thursday.

 “The 12 Senate Republicans who voted for it within the Senate are both silly or deceitful as a result of you’ll be able to’t probably inform me that that’s truly going to guard spiritual liberty,” Roy mentioned.

Home Republican Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., informed The Each day Sign on Thursday:

Beneath full Democrat celebration rule, we now have seen too many People have their spiritual freedoms trampled upon, and the shortage of spiritual liberty protections on this invoice will open People of religion as much as assaults by unelected bureaucrats in Washington. As we transfer into the bulk subsequent 12 months, Home Republicans are dedicated to defending spiritual freedoms as a high precedence of the brand new Congress.

“Folks can have disagreements on that, however that’s not a safety of your, of your spiritual liberty, culturally held spiritual beliefs,” Rep. Roy of Texas mentioned. “It’s an abomination.”

Editor’s Observe: This story has been up to date with an extra remark from Chip Roy.

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