President Joe Biden is set to sign legislation to codify federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages in a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday.
Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff are also expected to attend.
The president will emphasize bipartisan support for the legislation, passed by Congress last week, while calling for more to be done, including a renewed push for bill to prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, a White House official told NBC News.
Biden is also expected to quote directly from a 2012 interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in which he came out in public support of same-sex marriage. His words from that interview will also be featured on a program for the event.
The legislation Biden will sign was drafted by a bipartisan group led by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the first openly gay person elected to the Senate. It will ensure that the federal government recognizes marriages and guarantee full benefits “regardless of the couple’s sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin.” The bill will not, however, require states to issue marriage licenses contrary to state laws.
The House voted 258-169 to pass the bill last week, sending the legislation to the president. The Senate passed it late last month by a vote of 61-36.
Democrats unanimously voted to support the bill, while most Republicans in both chambers opposed it. The bill was revised by Baldwin in an effort to gain some Republican votes, with language saying that religious organizations would not be required to perform same-sex marriages and that the federal government wouldn’t be required to protect polygamous marriages.
Hundreds are expected to attend the bill signing on the South Lawn, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., her office confirmed — an appearance with Biden that comes just days after she left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent. Sinema was a lead cosponsor of the bill, along with Baldwin and Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Rob Portman of Ohio, and helped broker a compromise amendment on religious freedom protections that secured GOP votes for the underlying legislation.
Other attendees at the signing are expected to include Club Q co-owner Matthew Haynes and shooting survivors James Slaugh and Michael Anderson. Other attendees include plaintiffs in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2015 that guaranteed the right to same-sex marriage; Judy Kasen-Windsor, widow of gay rights activist Edith Windsor; Philip Hirschkop, co-counsel in Loving v. Virginia, the landmark 1967 Supreme Court ruling that protected interracial marriage; photographer Hunter Abrams; and Brandon Wolf, survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
An earlier version of the bill was passed by the House earlier this year after Democratic leaders expressed concern that the Supreme Court could follow its June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade with a ruling that rescinds the right of same-sex couples to marry.
Democrats pointed to Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe, in which he called on the conservative majority court to also revisit landmark decisions that legalized the right to contraception and same-sex marriage.
The legislation comes as state lawmakers have proposed a record number of bills that would limit the rights of LGBTQ people in recent years. It also comes amid widespread anti-LGBTQ rhetoric led by right-wingers and a string of attacks on the community, including the deadly shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last month.
Biden’s signing of the legislation comes a decade after he came out in public support of same-sex marriage, marking a change for the former senator, who had previously voted against recognition of same-sex marriages. The then-vice president stated his support on the issue before then-President Barack Obama, who did the same days later.
“The good news is that, as more and more Americans become to understand, what this is all about is a simple proposition: Who do you love? Who do you love, and will you be loyal to the person you love? And that’s what people are finding out is what all marriages, at their root, are about, whether they’re marriages of lesbians, or gay men or heterosexuals,” Biden said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in 2012.
“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,” he added. “And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.”
Sahil Kapur, Kyle Stewart and Scott Wong contributed.
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