Respect for Marriage Act
The Respect for Marriage Act is a United States federal law passed by the United States Congress in 2022 and signed into law by President Joe Biden on December 13, 2022.[1]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released the following statement on Tuesday, November 15, 2022.
- The doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints related to marriage between a man and a woman is well known and will remain unchanged.
- We are grateful for the continuing efforts of those who work to ensure the Respect for Marriage Act includes appropriate religious freedom protections while respecting the law and preserving the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.
- We believe this approach is the way forward. As we work together to preserve the principles and practices of religious freedom together with the rights of LGBTQ individuals, much can be accomplished to heal relationships and foster greater understanding.[2]
According to a Deseret News article, the Respect for Marriage Act passed the House in July with two simple goals.
First, "the bill would repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, a definition previously struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that law was unconstitutional in 2013 in United States v. Windsor.
"The second goal of the House bill was to establish a federal rule that states must recognize a same-sex marriage entered legally in another state."[3]
“The Respect for Marriage Act is like insurance,” Cliff Rosky, a constitutional law professor at the University of Utah who has been on the advisory council of Equality Utah, said. “In case Obergefell [Obergefell v. Hodges] is overturned, Congress is saying, ‘We believe same-sex couples have the right to marry,’ and those marriages will be valid nationwide.”[4]
The law, in fact, did repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, also known as DOMA. It requires the federal government and all states and territories to recognize the validity of same-sex and interracial civil marriages in the United States, and protects religious liberty.
- “Same-sex marriage is the law in all 50 states. We know that. That’s not consistent with our doctrine, but that’s the reality,” said Elder Jack N. Gerard, a General Authority Seventy and the signatory on the letter indicating the church’s support. “So what we’re trying to do is go forward protecting our religious rights while at the same time respecting our LGBTQ brothers and sisters who have a very different view.”
- He said there are two main reasons the church supports the Senate’s amended Respect for Marriage Act.
- “First, it is clear our well-known doctrine on marriage will remain unchanged,” he said. “This does not change church doctrine. In fact, the religious freedom amendments (in the Respect for Marriage Act) support our ability to practice our doctrine.”
- “Second, the support of these amendments will ensure that all religious people and institutions are respected and protected, even though they have a doctrine or practice that’s inconsistent with the law of the land.”
For many years, the Church of Jesus Christ has actively supported lawmaking that provides nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ people while simultaneously protecting the right of religions to maintain their doctrines and practices.
In 2009, the church publicly backed two Salt Lake City ordinances that protected LGBTQ residents from housing and employment discrimination.[5]
- With those ordinances in place, Elders Dallin H. Oaks and Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, held a news conference in 2015 to announce the church’s Fairness For All initiative. Within two months, the Utah Compromise added sexual orientation and gender identity to Utah’s nondiscrimination laws in housing and employment and also clarified exemptions for religious institutions and their affiliates. It also provided protections for religious expression.
- “In a head-on conflict over individual free exercise (of religion) and enforced non-discrimination in housing and employment,” President Dallin H. Oaks, now first counselor in the church’s First Presidency, said that year, “the Utah Legislature crafted a compromise position under the banner of ‘fairness for all.’ It gave neither position all that it sought, but granted both positions benefits that probably could not have been obtained without the kind of balancing that is possible in the law-making branch but not the judiciary.”[
Elder Gerard said that the church also views its approach from a doctrinal standpoint regarding the two great commandments taught by Jesus Christ. Protecting the liberty to hold its religious beliefs is part of loving God by keeping his commandments, and protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination is part of loving one’s neighbor, he said.
- President Oaks has given several landmark addresses that reveal the principles behind the Fairness for All approach of senior church leadership.
- “Our efforts to resolve challenges to religious liberty will be strengthened if we do not always seek total dominance for our own positions,” he said in July at a religious liberty conference sponsored by Notre Dame in Rome.
- “Some accommodations may be necessary as we strive to honor legitimate laws and respect other persons’ highest ideals and human experiences. Conflicting claims are best resolved by seeking to understand the experiences and concerns of others, and by good faith negotiations. None of this requires any compromise of our core religious principles, but rather a careful examination of what is really essential to our free exercise of religion, in contrast to what other believers consider really essential to their beliefs. In this way we learn to live peacefully with some laws we dislike and with some persons whose values differ from our own.”
- That explanation, like the church’s now longstanding support of laws that both protect religious rights and LGBTQ rights, was not new.
- In 2016, the church’s top lawyer outlined the church’s approach to protecting religious liberty during a speech at BYU. He said people of faith should prioritize the defense of an innermost core of religious freedoms. That means they also have to be willing to compromise on freedoms outside that core, said Elder Lance B. Wickman, general counsel for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an emeritus General Authority Seventy.
