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The bill, which is expected to pass the Senate, would serve as a
legal backstop against any future Supreme Court action by
requiring the federal government recognize any marriage that was
legal in the state it was performed.
However, it would not block states from banning same-sex or
interracial marriages if the Supreme Court allows them to do so.
Supporters of same-sex marriage were spurred to act when Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should also
reconsider the legality of same-sex marriage, in a concurring
opinion to the court's overturning of federal protections for
abortion in June.
There are roughly 568,000 married same-sex couples in the United
States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
"I've heard from constituents back home who are concerned and
worried about the suggestion that their right to marry who they
love will be taken away," Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, the
first openly gay person elected to the Senate, said at a press
conference on Tuesday.
Although same-sex marriage has gone from a political hot potato
to a well-established norm in the past decade, the bill's
negotiators have still had to thread a needle between protecting
a right most Americans now see as a given, and assuaging
concerns from Republican senators about religious liberties.
The legislation, which must get support from 60 senators in the
evenly divided chamber to pass, is the result of months of
negotiating by Baldwin and fellow Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, along
with Republican senators Susan Collins, Thom Tillis and Rob
Portman.
A similar bill passed in the House in July, with the support of
47 Republicans along with all of the chamber's Democrats.
The bill will have to jump through several more procedural hoops
in the Senate before going back to the House for final approval.
(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; editing by Andy
Sullivan and Lincoln Feast)
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