On Tuesday, December 13, President Joe Biden signed the Respect For Marriage Act. Which helps protect same-sex and interracial marrige. Biden gave a speech before he signed the bill saying, “Everyone should have the right to answer those questions for themselves without the government interference.”

The bill passed with 39 house republican votes and getting through the senate, which has 12 republican senators. Over the years people have become more and more open to the idea of same-sex marriage with over 68 percent of Americans supporting same-sex marriage. On a NBC interview Biden said, ¨I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.” People watching the interview were caught off guard since the question was unexpected, since Biden has stated before that “marriage should only take place between a man and a woman.”

This bill allows people to get married and be able to spend the rest of their lives with the person they love no matter what. People had voiced that this bill couldn’t have come at a better moment.

Many Activists came out to the signing like Judith Kasen-Windsor, widow of gay rights activist Edie Windsor and Matthew Haynes, co-owner of Club Q, the LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs that a gunman had opened fire killing five people. David Bohnett, who has been an outspoken gay and transgender rights activist, Bohnett saying this according to CNN, ¨Biden has demonstrated his support for decades for lesbian and gay civil rights, and Tuesday’s signing into law is a reaffirmation of that during this time when rights are under assault.” Bohnett also said, “I think we’re here in response to the hateful and discriminatory actions and tactics by so many in the right-wing and so many that want to dismantle the rights that we fought so hard for for a long time.”

CNN reporters said Biden also commented, “For most of our nation’s history, we denied interracial couples and same sex couples from these protections. It failed to treat them with equal dignity and respect. And now, this law requires an interracial marriage and same-sex marriage must be recognized as legal in every state in the nation.”