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U.S. Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and (L-R) Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Senate Minority Whip Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) at the U.S. Capitol on July 12, 2022Alex Wong/Getty Images

Stop Federal Lawmakers From Forcing Gay Marriage On The States! Tell your Senators to vote NO.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – A group of over eighty religious conservative organizations sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Tuesday urging him to reject HR 8404, the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act,” which they say would threaten religious freedom in addition to codifying the “right” to same-sex “marriage.”

The letter, led by the Alliance Defending Freedom and cosigned by CatholicVote, Liberty Counsel, the Heritage Foundation, and others, argues that the bill would force each state to recognize any marriage performed in other states “without any parameters whatsoever.”

According to the letter, “This would include plural marriages, time-bound marriages, open marriages, marriages involving a minor or relative, platonic marriages, or any other new marriage definition that a state chooses to adopt, including through undemocratic imposition by a state Supreme Court.”

“Such recognition impacts a myriad of federal laws and policies regarding marriage, its benefits, and rights of parents and children,” the groups warn.

The letter states that the bill could lead to predatory lawsuits against Christian business owners who refuse to facilitate same-sex “weddings” and ceremonies, as well as religiously affiliated foster services, social services, and government contractors for refusing to acknowledge same-sex “marriage.” It also argues that the bill would threaten the tax-exempt status of religious organizations for defending the traditional definition of marriage.

“During the Supreme Court’s Obergefell oral argument, then-U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli ‘candidly acknowledged’ that if the Court created a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, ‘the tax exemptions of some religious institutions would be in question,’” the letter states. “H.R. 8404 creates the foundation for fulfilling this warning by implicitly giving the IRS congressional support to punish religious non-profits.”

“We call on you to reject [the bill] and to urge your colleagues to thoroughly abandon this harmful and unnecessary legislation,” the letter concludes. “It has little to do with protecting rights; its text betrays an intent to stigmatize and take rights away—especially those belonging to people of faith.”

Last week, the House voted to pass HR 8404, with 47 House Republicans joining every Democrat in the measure as Republican leadership in the House did nothing to try to stop the law. The bill is currently up for a vote in the Senate and has the support of five Republican senators, including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

Sponsors of the bill maintain that it is a response to remarks made by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in his opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, in which he said that the Court should reconsider its due process precedents, including Obergefell v. Hodges, which imposed same-sex “marriage” nationally.

The Centennial Institute, a Colorado-based conservative organization and one of the signatories of the letter, organized a national campaign Tuesday for people to contact their senators to voice opposition to the bill. “This is a continued effort to make sex and gender irrelevant in our society,” Centennial Institute director Jeff Hunt said. “Conservatives should not abandon defense of traditional marriage.”

LifeSite is currently running a VoterVoice campaign attempting to make Republican senators aware of grassroots opposition to the bill, and vote against it accordingly.

Stop Federal Lawmakers From Forcing Gay Marriage On The States! Tell your Senators to vote NO.

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