WASHINGTON – Angie Haws and her wife, Elizabeth, have been married for seven years. They met at a bar in Wisconsin a decade ago.
“I worked up the courage to talk to her and we have been together ever since,” Angie said.
Last December, President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law. It protects couples in same-sex and interracial marriages. The signing happened back when the couple was trying to start a family, and now they have a three-month-old daughter.
“It just means even more now too, just knowing that our marriage and our growing family is protected,” Elizabeth said.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, was at the center of negotiations in Congress to get legislation across the finish line.
“I’m just so proud that we did come together on this, again, giving so many millions of couples peace of mind,” she said.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Wisconsin since 2014.
Among its provisions, the Respect for Marriage Act bars states from denying the validity of out-of-state marriages based on sex or race. Angie and Elizabeth Haws said it means a lot that Baldwin, the first openly LGBTQ woman elected to the House and Senate, is looking out for couples like them. But they said there’s more Congress could do.
One concern is that a more conservative Supreme Court could overturn its 2015 decision known as Obergefell. In that ruling, the court said the constitution guarantees the right to same-sex marriage.
“The Respect for Marriage Act is great,” Angie said. “It’s a first step, but it kind of stands on the shoulders of Obergefell, and if Obergefell falls, states are allowed to reenact these discriminatory laws. So we need something that actually codifies the constitutional protections provided under the Obergefell decision into law.”
Biden’s campaign team is using the one-year anniversary of the bill’s signing as a way to differentiate the president from the Republicans running against him.
“We have to really vote like our lives and our rights depend on it here, because they do,” said Kevin Munoz, the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign spokesperson.
Munoz adds that there’s still more to do, such as Congress passing the Equality Act.
“We have to talk on the campaign trail about the Equality Act and the need to build federal legislation that ensures that everybody, no matter who they are, can’t be denied services, can’t be denied employment,” he said. “We really need to drive that contrast next year.”
Michail Takach, the curator and chair of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project, argues that the LGBTQ community cannot be complacent.
“Wins are not final. Wins are not permanent. Wins must always be guarded, or they will be eroded over time and eventually reversed,” Takach said. “I think that there was a bit of a celebratory complacency that followed marriage equality, where people felt like the battle has been won, and it’s over, and this verdict is final, and there’s no going back. But I think that was a bit of a fairy tale romance. And I think that the reality is, we should always be worried about rights being taken away.”
Takach said the Respect for Marriage Act gave people who were married at the time another layer of security.
“In doing this, the Biden administration really allowed LGBTQ Americans, and particularly ones in Wisconsin, to feel like they were part of America, right? Like they were not outliers, they were not outsiders, they weren’t sexual outlaws, they weren’t a political bargaining chip,” he said. “What I would hope it would do is activate voters to realize that what they have now is kind of constantly in jeopardy, and that if they wish to preserve the rights they have been given and earned, they really need to fight for them, and they really need to do so on a regular basis, in every election, at every level.”
Even though the Haws family agrees that the work’s not done, they appreciate how much progress the LGBTQ community has made in recent decades.
“Just all the work that so many people have put in to get us to where we are now, I think definitely has to be recognized,” Elizabeth said.
“Thinking back to where this country was four decades ago, the 80s and the 90s, I think sometimes I forget what it used to be like before I came out,” Angie added. “And I remember being out, and I remember same sex marriage was not a thing, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to get married.’ I do remember that; we did live through that time. But it is exciting to think about where we’re going and the great steps that we’ve made. It’s a little scary with some of the laws that are being passed around the country and feeling like we’re taking steps backwards, but I think it’s important to remember how far we’ve come and that just even as a country we are, we’re accepting the LGBTQ community… I’m really grateful.”