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WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 07: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a news conference after a policy luncheon with Senate Democrats at the U.S. Capitol Building on September 07, 2022 in Washington, DC. During the news conference, Senate Democrats spoke on several upcoming legislative items including the Respect for Marriage Act.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Stop Federal Lawmakers From Forcing Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ On The States! Tell your Senators to vote NO.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Senate will vote on a Democrat bill to codify forced recognition of same-sex “marriage” and open the door to federal recognition of polygamy “in coming weeks,” Democrat majority leader Chuck Schumer announced Wednesday, in what may be a sign that Democrats have found ten Republicans willing to defect.

HR 8404, the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act,” would repeal the longstanding (but unenforced) Defense of Marriage Act (which recognized marriage as a man-woman union in federal law and protected states’ rights to do the same), federally recognize any “marriage” lawfully performed by any state, and force every state to recognize any “marriage” of any other state “between 2 individuals,” without regard for “the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.” States would only have to recognize one another’s same-sex “marriages,” but the federal government would have to recognize any new union a state comes up with, such as a marriage of more than two people.

In July, 47 House Republicans joined every House Democrat in voting to pass it, with the blessing of House Republican leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell declined to stake out a public position on the legislation until Schumer announced a decision on bringing it to the floor of the evenly-divided Senate.

“We all want to pass this quickly,” Schumer said at a Wednesday press conference, the Associated Press reports. “I hope there will be 10 Republicans to support it.” The AP adds that the vote is expected by the end of September.

So far, at least four Republican senators have either committed to or implied supporting the bill: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and Rob Portman. Democrats need a total of ten GOP defections to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold; Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin had been a surprising fifth until he began to backtrack in response to pressure from conservative media and pro-family groups; he now says he “would not support it in its current state.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who has been heading Democrat outreach to Republican senators on the bill, claimed in late July to have secured enough additional GOP votes to pass it, though its prospects have since begun to appear less certain, due to concerns among moderate Republicans of the bill’s implications for religious liberty. An amendment is reportedly in the works, ostensibly to clarify it would not affect religious liberty or conscience rights.

READ: The Republican Party is about to betray Christians and destroy the traditional family

Politico adds that Democrats have also mulled attaching HR 8404 to a must-pass government funding bill, which would only need 51 votes. But Baldwin’s office says that “is not the Senator’s preferred path,” and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) says Republicans would object.

In any event, while Senate GOP leaders are neglecting to mobilize opposition to HR 8404, conservative groups such as Family Research Council, American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, and LifeSiteNews are picking up the slack. LifeSite is currently running a VoterVoice campaign to make Republican senators aware of grassroots opposition to HR 8404, and urging them to vote against it accordingly. 

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