“Marriage Equality Must Be Codified”: Pennsylvania House Passes Bill to Protect Same-Sex Marriage

Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a bill that would officially protect same-sex marriage in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

HB 2269, sponsored by Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, changes the definition of marriage under Pennsylvania’s Domestic Relations laws, which currently only recognizes marriage as being between a man and a woman. It also specifically repeals Pennsylvania’s Defense of Marriage Act, a law which invalidates same-sex marriage within Pennsylvania.

These laws are now outdated and unconstitutional as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Obergfell v. Hodges. In 2015, the Supreme Court held that the fundamental right to marriage is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to everyone, including same-sex couples. Since that decision, all states in the United States are required to permit and recognize same-sex marriages.

The impact of the Court’s decision in Obergefell cannot be understated; the case is widely heralded as one of the most important cases in the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the United States. But in recent decisions, conservative justices on the Court have threatened Obergefell’s place in American jurisprudence. This was felt, most notably, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court’s decision in 2022 which overruled Roe v. Wade and ruled that abortion access is not a fundamental right. Justice Thomas advocated for the Court to reconsider its past cases granting individual rights – including the right to same-sex marriage. Commentators worried about the Court’s signaled intent to rescind the accomplishments built, brick by brick, by the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022 in an effort to provide federal protections for same-sex and interracial couples if Supreme Court jurisprudence changes and Obergefell is overturned in the future. But for Pennsylvanians, HB 2269 is an important step towards protecting same-sex marriage at the state level and withstanding the potential for changes within national politics or the Supreme Court itself.

On July 1, 2024, Representative Kenyatta supported the bill in the Pennsylvania House, saying, “For me, Madam Speaker, I don’t rise today to ask anybody to vote any way other than what their heart dictates… What I want and what this bill is about is Pennsylvania, and our law reflecting settled jurisprudence, which said: I’m able to go home to the man that I love and call him my husband because he is. If you still want to fight a cultural war, if you’re still mad about my marriage, that is for you, for your God, for your diary, for your whatever.”

Representative Jessica Benham also spoke in support of the bill, saying, “Throughout this Commonwealth, there are loving couples raising families together who don’t deserve to ever have their family torn apart because court decisions have been overturned.”

HB 2269 passed by a vote of 133-68 on July 1, 2024. In response to the vote, Executive Director Preston Helfibridle of the Pennsylvania Youth Congress commented, “The PA House has made history in recognizing that marriage equality must be codified in our state law. LGBTQ Pennsylvanians should be able to marry their spouse without having to worry about the whims of political tensions and any future decisions of the United States Supreme Court. This vote affirms that updating the language in our state statute has broad bipartisan support, and embraces the reality that marriage equality is widely backed by Pennsylvanians. Marriage should be about celebrating a loving union between two adults. Marriage equality is simply the right public policy for Pennsylvania.”

The bill is now on its way to the Pennsylvania Senate for consideration.