The South Fork’s L.G.B.T.Q.+ community is celebrating President Biden’s signing on Tuesday of the Respect for Marriage Act, a new bipartisan law that protects the marriages of same-sex couples across the country.
After the Supreme Court in June overturned the longstanding Roe v. Wade decision that had protected abortion for nearly 50 years, same-sex marriage was widely viewed as the court’s next target — until Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, with a 61-to-36 vote in the Senate in late November and a tally of 258 to 169 in the House of Representatives last Thursday. Twelve Republican Senators and 39 House Republicans voted in support.
“All the L.G.B.T.Q.+ people and allies I’ve spoken to are joyous and relieved that this proactive, bipartisan confirmation protects marriage equality from any future whims of a recklessly conservative Supreme Court,” Tom House of Springs, founder of the nonprofit Hamptons Pride, said on Tuesday night. “While New Yorkers have had these rights since 2011, it’s important and liberating to East End L.G.B.T.Q.+ people to be assured that no matter what state we may find ourselves in, our marriages must be recognized for all-important federal purposes.”
A Gallup poll published in June indicates that about 71 percent of Americans support marriage equality. From medical insurance eligibility and income-tax filing to financial considerations and death-related benefits, the ability to marry one’s partner, regardless of sex or race, is an important personal choice. The Respect for Marriage Act also codifies interracial marriage, effectively securing the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia.
In the fight for same-sex marriage rights in New York State, activists like the late Edie Windsor of Southampton made the East End a key battleground. The lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor, she died in 2017.
“The fact is, marriage is this magic thing,” Ms. Windsor said before her death, according to a 2013 article in The Star. “I mean, forget all the financial stuff. Marriage . . . symbolizes commitment and love like nothing else in the world. And it’s known all over the world. I mean, wherever you go, if you’re married, that means something to people. . . .”
Yesterday, Judith Kasen-Windsor, Ms. Windsor’s second wife, said by phone that she feels “amazing” about the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act. She was there with President Biden in Washington, D.C., for the landmark signing, which she called “a great day, an emotional day.”
“I’m sad that Edie is not here. . . . Would she be joyous? Of course, but she would think the process was redundant,” Ms. Kasen-Windsor said.
She was wearing a diamond pin that had been Ms. Windsor’s gift to her first wife, Thea Spyer, on the occasion of their engagement. They had been together for 40 years but finally married in 2007; Ms. Spyer died in 2009.
“Edie said, ‘You know what, there might be an occasion where you would wear it,’ and yesterday was the occasion,” Ms. Kasen-Windsor said. “It brought Edie and Thea to that event. That was their circle of diamonds, so I wore that pin.”
“Rights are fragile,” she later continued. “We have branches of government not in step with the American people.”
The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, was still technically on the books. DOMA limited the definition of marriage to an institution for a man and a woman only, and gave individual states the right to ignore the rights and protections of same-sex marriages performed in other states. However, it was officially repealed Tuesday with the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, which also reinforces the 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges in that the Fourteenth Amendment — which outlines due protection and equal protection clauses — guarantees same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples.
The Rev. Rob Stuart, a minister who has served multiple Presbyterian congregations on the South Fork, has been an officiant in same-sex unions since the 1990s. “The passage of the Respect for Marriage Act legitimizes all of this, making it more secure, not in the shadow of a precious Supreme Court decision being overturned,” he said. “Those of us in the L.G.B.T.Q.+ communities can be very proud and happy in this development.”
Mr. House said that “What everyone fears is that if the court should overturn Obergefell, people in states that don’t ensure marriage equality will once again have to travel to ones like ours to legally wed. The damaging subtext of that outrageous inconvenience is that we’re not valid, not deserving, as citizens or as human beings, in the places where we live. It’s ugly, prehistoric thinking, more and more out-of-step with the majority of Americans, and the Respect for Marriage Act anticipates any such reversal from the court, and will protect our local marriages throughout the country.”
Louis Bradbury of East Hampton, who was co-chair of the Empire State Pride Agenda when New York State legalized same-sex marriage in 2011, said President Biden’s signing on Tuesday “was very heartwarming, and a relief.”
“We don’t know what the Supreme Court is going to do in the future, so this helps a lot,” he said. “This reflects that this is what people really want.”
