If Senators Care At All About Their Constituents’ Religious Freedom, They Must Amend The Anti-Marriage Bill

On Nov. 8, parents all over the nation were voting out school board members who were either too evil or too gullible to protect children against the left’s perverse and pervasive sexualization. A week later, 12 Republican senators voted for legislation that would unleash the power of the federal government against them. Some of the senators — Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — were the usual suspects. Others blindsided their constituents, who wrongly believed that they would vote on the side of sanity.

Wyoming’s junior senator, Cynthia Lummis, was one of these. Even the Never Trumper Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Wyoming’s senior Sen. John Barrasso voted against bringing the outrageously named “Respect for Marriage Act” to the floor. They know gaslighting when they see it. How did Lummis miss the memo?

Was she not warned? Of course, she was. On July 26, one week after disgraced Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., joined with 220 Democrats to pass “An Act To Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act,” H.R. 8404, fourscore and three conservative groups — ranging from the Family Policy Alliance to Wyoming Catholic College — sent a joint letter to explain the harm this legislation would bring.

First, the act will tether federal law to the caprice of the most unhinged states in the union. Whatever a state says marriage is, the federal government would be obliged to act as though it were a sane definition. Temporary marriages? Yup. Incestuous marriages? Yup. Polygamy? Yup.

Second, H.R. 8404 “effectively deputizes activist groups to sue religious individuals, organizations, and businesses,” according to the letter. If your speech does not sufficiently parrot the newest definition of marriage, expect to be bankrupted by legal fees. Private citizens and faith-based service providers both can be taken to federal court by any lawfare machine in the country. All an activist needs in order to claim personal injury is denial of “full faith and credit” to the latest faddish definition of marriage.

Third, the act gives enforcement power to the criminally partisan and politicized Department of Justice to launch investigations that intimidate parents and to file charges that hobble organizations standing up for marriage. Lois Lerner’s legacy ensures that the Internal Revenue Service will use these as a pretext to threaten the tax-exempt status of any 501(c)(3) that fails to memory-hole the historic definition of marriage.

No Protection

H.R. 8404 looked dead until Lummis breathed new life into it by whispering support for an amendment crafted by Tammy Baldwin, R-Wis. Its slithery language claims to add religious liberty protections and draw a line in the sand against polygamy. It does neither.

Competent lawyers can readily see its indecency through the fig leaves. But Lummis’s staff cannot. The catch-all phrase, “Nothing in this Act … shall be construed to diminish or abrogate a religious liberty,” does nothing to protect Americans from endless lawfare. It is, rather, an invitation to enterprising lawyers and activists.

Lummis has been