Why Marriage Equality Is Back on the Ballot

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

57% : In 2022, Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires the federal government to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages and states to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states where such marriages are legal.
53% : The Respect for Marriage Act, too, could always be overturned with a rightward shift in congressional power.
45% : That leaves same-sex couples vulnerable if the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell, as hard-line conservative Justice Clarence Thomas signaled he would look to do in his June 2022 concurrence in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization: "We should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell," Thomas wrote at the time.
44% : This November, facing a potential second Trump presidency, three states -- California, Colorado, and Hawaii -- will ask voters to secure same-sex marriage into state law.
34% : Broad consensus among Republican senators, according to NBC News, indicates that Trump would fill at least one Supreme Court vacancy during his four-year term if he wins in November.
32% : In 2015, a 5-4 Supreme Court majority in Obergefell v. Hodges found that state bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional.
32% : "Before [Trump] was elected, and when he got elected, people were upset, but they hadn't lived through it," Franco-Clausen said.

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