DURHAM, N.C. (WNCN) — Following a bipartisan vote in the U.S. Senate on a bill to provide protections for people in same-sex and interracial marriages, a Durham couple is hopeful the bill will make it to President Joe Biden’s desk soon.
Barb Goldstein and Ann Willoughby have been together for more than 40 years and became concerned earlier this year when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. They worried that the court could consider overturning the decision legalizing same-sex marriage as well.
“Having a bill pass now that will guarantee that no matter what happens our marriage will be valid in the state is very important to us,” said Goldstein.
The Senate passed the bill Tuesday evening with 12 Republicans joining the Democrats in voting in favor of it. Both of North Carolina’s Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr approved the measure. Tillis has been working for several months on a bipartisan amendment he said would strengthen religious liberty, playing a key role in getting the bill to this point.
“We think we owe this community some certainty that if they’re in states that recognize same-sex marriages, that they can travel freely through the United States,” Tillis recently told CBS 17. “We also have made, I think, major progress on protecting religious liberty. And, I think it strikes the right balance, and that’s why I support it.”
Goldstein called Tillis’s work on the bill “perplexing but very impressive” in light of his role 10 years ago when he was Speaker of the N.C. House of Representatives and North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment establishing that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Tillis pointed out there are more than a million people in same-sex marriages and civil unions, and said they deserve “some certainty.”
The bill the Senate passed does not require states to legalize same-sex marriage. Rather, it requires them to recognize a marriage if it was legally performed in another state.
When Goldstein and Willoughby met in Michigan decades ago, they didn’t talk in public about their relationship.
“We never really said anything until after we moved here to North Carolina, years after we had been here. We both went through the school of social work master’s degree program. And, everyone knew the nature of our relationship but it was something that was just never spoken,” recalled Goldstein.
Willoughby added, “It was just a tacit agreement that you don’t talk about it with people, the assumption that people would be uncomfortable.”
Even just within the past 10 years they’ve noticed a significant change in people’s attitudes toward LGBTQ relationships.
“There’s so much more activism now and pressure to get laws passed that will protect these relationships. We’re in our 70s and 80s. Younger people are not shy about this and they’re not secretive,” said Goldstein.
Equality North Carolina released a statement Wednesday about the bill, calling it a “crucial step” but also “the bare minimum.”
“Our LGBTQ+ communities are under attack from all directions, with harsh legislation targeting healthcare, education, and transgender youth and affirming families. This harm is only worsened at the intersections of the LGBTQ+ community with other marginalized groups,” the group said in a statement.
The North Carolina Values Coalition took issue with the bill, calling it “unnecessary.” The group also criticized Tillis and Burr for voting for it.
“It is a dangerous, direct attack on Americans who believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman and threatens their First Amendment rights by subjecting them to predatory lawsuits by activists, seeking to use the threat of litigation to silence debate and exclude people of faith from the public square,” the group said in a statement Wednesday.
The bill goes to the House next where it could get a vote as early as next week and then head to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
