Kentucky Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul voted against the Respect for Marriage Act that passed the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
Sen. McConnell did not respond to requests for comment.
The bill, which seeks to protect gay and interracial marriage, passed the upper chambers by a vote of 61-36, paving the way for it to pass the Democrat-controlled House and be signed into law by President Joe Biden.
“With today’s bipartisan Senate passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, the United States is on the brink of reaffirming a fundamental truth: love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love,” Biden said in a statement. “For millions of Americans, this legislation will safeguard the rights and protections to which LGBTQI+ and interracial couples and their children are entitled.”
While both types of unions are currently legal in the U.S., some in Congress feared that the Supreme Court would overturn the 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage after the high court struck down Roe v. Wade, which federally protected the right to an abortion.
The new bill would also repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which kept same-sex couples from accessing benefits.
While the bill received bipartisan support, with 47 Republicans voting in favor of the act, Kentucky’s two senators voted no.
Sen. Paul has said that the government should get out of marriage, even though he disagrees with the Supreme Court’s definition of the institution.
“Current law allows individuals in every state to engage in civil contracts or legal unions,” Paul said to LINK nky in a statement. “I have long felt that contracts should be adjudicated at the local level and, just as I don’t want my guns registered in Washington, neither do I want my marriage overseen or regulated from Washington.”