Tag: Marriage

Senate Defends Marriage Equality in Historic Bipartisan Vote

On Tuesday night, the U.S. Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects same-sex and interracial marriages. In a statement, President Biden said the vote reaffirmed “a fundamental truth: Love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love.”

RMA needed just 60 votes—including 10 Republican votes—to break a filibuster and pass. In the end, RMA, which was led by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), passed by a vote of 61 to 36, with 12 Republicans voting with their Democratic colleagues.

Thirty-six Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, voted against the bill—standing in stark contrast to the rest of the United States: 71 percent of Americans say they support legal same-sex marriage.

Empowered: Women Tell Family Court Judges of Experiences With Coercive Control Using New Domestic Abuse Law

Connecticut’s new Jennifers’ Law, which went into effect last October and expanded domestic abuse to include coercive control, addresses the way perpetrators weaponize the court system.

“We’ve faced trauma and been dismissed in our marriages—then we’ve seen the truth dismissed in court. We tell people to leave an abusive marriage and go to get help and be protected, but then the judicial system has to step up to protect us. I hope women hear our stories and are empowered to speak up about Jennifers’ Law too.”

Stop Praising Colleen Hoover’s ‘It Ends With Us.’ Here’s What You’re Missing

Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel, It Ends With Us, was the sixth best-selling book of 2021, BookTok is going nuts over it and USA Today called it “the kind of book that gets handed down.” The novel centers on the relationship between Lily and Ryle, a young newlywed couple who live in Boston.

Hoover’s writing is being touted as part of a resurgence of romance writing, but It Ends With Us is not a romance novel; it’s a celebration of toxic masculinity.

Keeping Score: ‘The Dominoes Have Started to Fall, and They Won’t Just Stop at One’

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in in this biweekly round-up.

This week: Activists fear the Supreme Court will come after same-sex and interracial marriage next; House passes bill protecting same-sex marriage, requests testimony from major gun manufacturers; Biden administration challenges states on enforcement of abortion bans; women participate in the Tour de France after 33 years; and more.

Her Ex-Husband Is Suing a Clinic Over the Abortion She Had Four Years Ago

Nearly four years after a woman ended an unwanted pregnancy with abortion pills obtained at a Phoenix clinic, she finds herself mired in an ongoing lawsuit over that decision. A judge allowed the woman’s ex-husband to establish an estate for the embryo, which had been aborted in its seventh week of development. The ex-husband filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the clinic and its doctors in 2020.

Experts said this rare tactic could become more common, as anti-abortion groups have signaled their desire to further limit reproductive rights. The Arizona lawsuit and others that may follow could also be an attempt to discourage and intimidate providers and harass plaintiffs’ former romantic partners.