More than a quarter-century after Congress enacted a federal ban on recognising marriages between two people of the same sex, President Joe Biden has signed into law bipartisan legislation guaranteeing same-sex married couples and interracial married couples the right to be treated as legally married spouses in all 50 states.
Speaking on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday, surrounded by many of the lawmakers and activists who’d pushed for Congress to act to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights, Mr Biden hailed the Respect for Marriage Act as the next step in America’s ongoing extension of fundamental rights to more and more groups compared with the narrow set of those recognised as deserving of full citizenship at the time of the country’s founding.
