Panel Set for July 20 Senate Hearing into Respect for Marriage Act
In advance of this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, July 20, by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on the Respect for Marriage Act — the bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act — the Republican-chosen witnesses were added to the hearing list today.
Thomas Minnery, the senior vice president for public policy at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo., will be testifying in the first panel, alongside the three people chosen to testify by the Democrats: Ron Wallen of Indio, Calif.; Andrew Sorbo of Cheshire, Conn.; and Susan M. Murray of Ferrisburgh, Vt.
In the second panel, Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese and Freedom to Marry president Evan Wolfson will be joined by two marriage equality opponents. David Austin R. Nimocks is the senior legal counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, which has been the driving legal force behind most anti-LGBT litigation in recent years, Edward Whelan is the president or the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington and testified in the House Judiciary Committee at its DOMA hearing earlier this year.
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