Legality Of Same Sex Marriages! Essay, Research Paper
INTRODUCTION
The proposed legalization of same sex marriage is one of
the most significant issues in contemporary American family
law. Presently, it is one of the most vigorously advocated
reforms discussed in law reviews, one of the most
provocative issues. It could be one of the most
revolutionary policy decisions in the history of American
family law.
The potential consequences, positive or negative, for
children, parents, same-sex couples, families, social,
structure public health, and the status of women are
enormous. Given the importance of the issue, the value of
comprehensive debate may be obvious. Marriage is much more
than a commitment to love one another. Aside from societal
and religious conventions, marriage entails legally imposed
financial responsibility and legally authorized financial
benefits. Marriage instantly provides a automatic legal
succession of a deceased spouse’s property, as well as
pension and law, as well as promise in the eyes of the Lord,
and their as well as to enjoy its benefits, should the law
prohibit their request merely because they are of the same
gender? I intend to prove that because of Article IV of the
United States Constitution. there is no reason why the
federal government nor any state government should restrict
marriage to a predefined homosexual relationship?
Marriage laws have changed throughout the years. In
Western law, wives are now equal rather than subordinate
partners; interracial marriage is now widely accepted, both
in the statue and in society; and marital failure itself,
rather than the fault of one partner, may be grounds in some
states for a divorce. Societal changes have been felt in
marriages over the past twenty-five years as divorce rates
have increased. Proposals to legalize same-sex marriages or
to enact broad domestic partnership laws are currently being
promoted by gay and lesbian activists, especially in Europe
and North America. The trend in western European nations
during the past decade has been to some same-sex couples.
For example, with in the past six years, three Scandinavian
countries have enacted domestic partnership laws allowing
same-sex couples in which at least one partner is a citizen
of the specified country. Therefore allowing that
homosexual marriages are given.
In the Netherlands, the Parliament is considered
domestic partnership status for same-sex couples, all the
major political parties favor recognizing same-sex
relations, and more than a dozen towns have already done so.
Finland provides governmental social benefits to same-sex
partners. Belgium allows gay prisoners the right to have a
conjugal visits from same-sex partners. An overwhelming
majority of European nations have granted partial legal
status to homosexual relationships.
In the United States, efforts to legalize same-sex
domestic partnership have had some, limited success. The
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. reported that
by mid- 1995, thirty-six municipalities, eight countries,
three states, five state agencies, and two federal agencies
extended some benefits to, or registered for official
purposes, same-sex partnerships. In 1994, the California
legislature passed a domestic partnership bill that provided
official state registration of same-sex couples and provided
limited marital rights and privileges relating to hospital
visitation, willis and estates, and powers of attorney.
While California’s Governor Wilson eventually vetoed the
bill, its passage by the legislature represented a notable
political achievement for advocates of the same-sex marriage
have won a major judicial victory that could lead to the
judicial legalization of the same-sex marriage or to
legislation authorizing same-sex domestic partnership in
that state. In 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court, in Baehr vs.
Lewin, vacated a state circuit court judgment dismissing
same-sex discrimination under the state constitution’s Equal
Protection Clause and Equal Rights Amendment.
The above case began in 1991 when three same-sex
couples who had been denied marriage licenses by the Hawaii
Department of Health brought suit in state court against the
director of the department. Hawaii law required couples
wishing to marry to obtain a marriage license. While the
marriage license law did not explicitly prohibit same-sex
marriage at the time, it used terms of gender that the
Hawaii marriage license law is unconstitutional, as it
prohibits same-sex marriage and allows state officials to
deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples in account of the
heterosexuality requirement. Baehr and her attorney sought
their objectives entirely through state law, not only by
filing in state rather than federal court, but also by
alleging exclusively violations of state law–the Hawaii
Constitution. the state moved for judgment on the pleadings
and for dismissal of the complaint for failure to state a
claim; the state’s motion was granted in October, 1991.
thus, the circuit court up held the homosexuality marriage
requirement as a matter of law and dismissed the plaintiffs’
challenges to it.
Yet recently the Circuit Court of Hawaii decided that
Hawaii had violated Baehr and her parent’s constitutional
rights be the fourteenth amendment and that they could be
recognized as a marriage. The court found that the state if
Hawaii’s constitution expressly discriminated against
homosexuals and that because of Hawaii’s anti-discrimination
law they must revaluate the situation. After the ruling the
state immediately asked for a stay of judgment, until the
appeal had been convened, therefore putting off any marriage
between Baehr and her partner for at least a year.
By far Baehr is the most positive step toward actual
marriage tights for gay and lesbian
people. Judges do not need the popularity of the people on
the Federal or circuit court level to make new precedent,
there is no clear majority (in the general public) that
homosexuals should have marriage rights. And still the
courts voted for Baehr. The judiciary has its own mind on
how to interpret the constitution, which is obviously very
different than most of American popular beliefs. This is
the principal reason that these judges are not elected by
the people, so they do not have to bow to people pressure.
The constitutional rights argument for same-sex marriage
affirms that there is a fundamental constitutional right to
marry, or a broader right of privacy or of intimate
association of consenting adults who want to share their
lives and commitment with each other and that same-sex
couples have just as much intimacy and need for marital
privacy as heterosexual couples; and that laws allowing
heterosexual, but not same-sex, couples to marry infringe
upon and discriminate against this fundamental right.
The Supreme court compelled states to allow interracial
marriage by recognizing the claimed right as part of the
fundamental constitutional right to marry, of privacy and of
intimate association. So should states be compelled now to
recognize the fundamental right of homosexuals to do the
same? If Baehr ultimately leads to the legalization of
same-sex marriage or broad, marriage like domestic
partnership in Hawaii, the impact of that legaliza
be felt widely. Marriage recognition principals derived
from choice -of -law and full-faith-and-credit rules
probably would be invoked to recognize same-sex Hawaiian
marriages as valid in other states. The impact of Hawaii’s
decision will immediately impact marriage laws of the United
States. The full faith and credit clause of the United
States Constitution provides that full faith and credit
shall be given to the “public acts, records, and judicial
proceedings of every other state.”
Marriage qualifies for recognition under each section:
1) Creation of marriage is “public act” because it occurs
pursuant to a statuary scheme and is performed by a legal
designated official, and because a marriage is an act by the
state;
2) A marriage certificate is a “record” with a outlined
legal effect, a showing that a marriage has been validly
contracted , that the spouses meet the qualifications of the
marriage statues, and they have duly entered matrimony.
Public records of lesser consequence, such as birth
certificates and automobile full faith and credit;
3) Celebrating a marriage is a “judicial proceeding” where
judges, court clerks, or justices of the peace perform the
act of marriage. It would seem evident that if heterosexual
couples use Article IV as a safety net and guarantee for
their wedlock then that same right should be given to
homosexual couples.
This Article has often been cited as a reference point
for interracial marriages in the south when those states do
not want to recognize the legitimacy of that union by
another state . As this is used for that lifestyle, there
is no logical reason it should be denied to perhaps millions
of homosexual couples in the name of the “normal” people who
actively seek to define their definition of all. It is
these “normal” people who create the definition of surplus
repression and social domination. Yet as they cling to the
Constitution for their freedoms they deny those same
freedoms to not “normal” people because they would lose
their social domination. Therefore it would seem they are
afraid to change because of all the “hype” about
homosexuals. People do not except that the world does
change.
Excuses were seldom used to get a divorce by using the
full faith and credit clause. Both partners in the marriage
do not agree in the reality of there marriage. He then goes
to Reno, Nevada, buys a house and gets a job for six weeks.
After that six weeks when he can declare himself a legal
resident he applies for a singular marriage void and because
of Nevada law allows one side to void their marriage if
they, are a resident of Nevada their marriage is now void.
The man now moves back to his home state, and upon doing so
this state must now recognize the legitimacy that Nevada has
voided out of the marriage. Even if the wife does not
consent, the new state cannot do anything about its
Legislation enacted by President Clinton from Senator Don
Nickles of Nevada called the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
has allowed individual states to react differently to any
intrusion of marriage that they feel is not proper. DOMA
states “marriage means only a legal union between one man
and one woman as husband and wife.” “Supports of DOOM also
claim clear constitutional warrant, and that congress is
exercising its own authority under Article IV to proscribe
the manner in which the public acts, records, and judicial
proceedings of every state, shall be proven.”
However it could seem that by allowing individual
states to alter and change what the meaning of marriage is,
it could create a disaster if heterosexuals want to wed.
The underlying principle in DOMA is that states now
have the right to redefine what they feel is or is not
appropriate behavior and shall be considered legal or
illegal in their state. It is also apparent that the
signing of DOMA by President Clinton was more of a
presidential campaign gesture then an actual change in
policy. While he has considerably shifted from his platform
in 1992. This move was specifically designed to change his
image among more conservative
voters. It is also was apparent that this move was because
a majority of conservative Americans still voted for Bob
Dole in the 1996 Presidential election. Clinton thought
that if he had changed his mind then maybe he could get some
more votes from the conservatives, who he thought would vote
for him with the new signing of the DOMA.
Clinton, now that he has been reelected, partially
under the front of a more moderate administration. Clinton
should rethink on the policy of the social change and
whether he wants to go out as the President that denied
hundreds of thousands of homosexuals the opportunity for
equal rights.
In 1967 the Supreme Court announced that “marriage is
one of the most basic civil rights of man….essential to
the pursuit of happiness.” having the highest court on the
land make such a profound statement about something which
current politicians think they can regulate like phone or
TV’s as something short of appalling. For who is to say
what happiness can be created form wed lock but the people
that are in the act itself, per couple, household and
gender. The Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act proclaim that
“All marriages contracted….outside this State that were
valid at the time of the contract or subsequently validated
by the laws of the place in which they were
contracted….are valid in this State.” This Act has been
enacted in seventeen states and could be the foundation for
full faith and credit if homosexual marriages were to take
place in other states.
However as much as the right wing conservatives wish to
pursue an aggressive anti-gay lifestyle agenda the DOMA act
has been widely criticized as intensely unconstitutional.
It is bias and discriminatory toward homosexuals and
therefore against the United States Constitution and once
again the fourteenth amendment proclaiming all citizens
equal. Fearing that the state may have to recognize
same-sex marriages from Hawaii and Alaska, because of the
controversy over DOMA the state legislatures of Arizona,
South Dakota, Utah, Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho, and Georgia,
have made preemptive strikes and enacted state legislation
which bars recognition of same-sex marriages. Several other
state legislatures, including Alabama, Arkansas, California,
Delaware, Louisiana, New Mexico, Kentucky, Maine, South
Carolina, and Wisconsin, have attempted to enact similar
legislation, but failed. After Hawaiian marriages are
brought to these states for enforcement, these laws will
lead each state into a potential separate constitutional
challenge of its same-sex marriage ban.
Those cases should be the new foundation for a sweeping
change in popular American politics and thought and will
perhaps pave the road for increased awareness of this human
rights issue. Leaving aside, as government should,
objections that may be held by particular religions, the
cases that are with same-sex marriages are not good for
people because they are not use to hearing about it, and
don’t want to hear about it. At the same time, it is an
argument for legalizing homosexual marriages through
politics as in Denmark, rather than by court order, as may
happen in Hawaii.