US House to vote on protecting contraceptives, days after 157 Republicans voted against protecting same-sex/interracial marriage

Days after the US House passed a bill to protect same-sex and interracial marriages, it is now pushing through legislation to do the same for contraceptives.

That vote is planned for Thursday. It is Democrats’ latest campaign-season response to worries that a conservative Supreme Court that’s erased federal abortion rights could go further.

There were 157 Republicans in the House that voted against protecting gay and interracial marriage Tuesday. That included four — Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grothman, Tom Tiffany, Mike Gallagher — of the five GOP reps in Wisconsin. Two of the three Minnesota Republicans (Pete Stauber, Michelle Fiscbach) voted against, as well as one of the three Iowa reps (Randy Feenstra).

Third Congressional District Democrat Ron Kind of La Crosse voted in favor of the bill, as did Wisconsin’s other two House Democrats — Mark Pocan and the only female and black House member in the state, Gwen Moore.

While it passed, the marriage bill could die in the Senate. The contractive bill that will most certainly pass the House on Thursday, as well, but could stall in the Senate.

In his opinion overturning Roe v. Wade last month, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should now review other precedents. He mentioned rulings that affirmed the rights of same-sex marriage in 2015, same-sex intimate relationships in 2003 and married couples’ use of contraceptives in 1965.