Senate vote on same-sex marriage protection delayed until after midterms

Sept. 15 (UPI) -- A vote in the U.S. Senate on the Respect For Marriage Act codifying same-sex marriage rights will be delayed until after the midterm elections, Sen. Tammy Baldwin said Wednesday.

Baldwin, D-Wis., is the lead sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill in the Senate and said the vote -- originally scheduled for Monday --would not take place until after the elections are held in November.

"I'm still very confident that the bill will pass but we will be taking the bill up later, after the election," Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said after a Democratic caucus lunch Thursday.

The House, in a 267-157 vote, has already passed the bill.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said holding a vote after the elections will garner more votes for the bill.

"If I wanted to pass that and I was the majority leader and I wanted to get as many votes as I could possibly get, I'd wait until after the election to have the vote," Blunt told reporters.

The House bill codifies federal recognition of same-sex marriage and also strengthens other marriage protections. That action came after the U.S., Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade.

Without federal codification by Congress, the Supreme Court could overturn Obergefell vs. Hodges -- the case that legalized same-sex marriages -- because abortion rights and same-sex marriage rights relied on the same due process privacy rights.

Writing in the court's Roe opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas urged the court to also consider new rulings on same-sex marriage, the right to engage in private consensual sex acts and contraception.

According to The Hill, a bipartisan group of negotiators met Thursday to decide whether or not to release text of an amendment addressing Republican concerns that churches could be put at some legal risk if same-sex marriage was codified.