FREE ESSAY ON LEGALITY OF SAME SEX MARRIAGES!

LEGALITY OF SAME SEX MARRIAGES!

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 legalization will 
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.