Today Massachusetts announced that they will be challenging the federal government, who currently refuses to acknowledge gay marriages from the state of Massachusetts and denies
them federal benefits. Basically the argument is that gay marriage has been left to the states, but via the Defense of Marriage Act, this is not so because the federal argument is allowed to pick and choose which marriages to recognize, regardless of the states. Pure state rights advocates would require the government to acknowledge the marriages performed in each state, gay or straight, because the federal government is supposedly not supposed to be in on the fight...and the Defense of Marriage Act could be easily construed as "overreaching and discriminatory" under this premise. I'm not sure if it will work, but it is worth an attempt to rid our country of the ridiculous DOMA. According to Boston University Law Professor Linda McClain, "This is a good argument since the U.S. Supreme Court has many times stated that domestic relations are a matter of state sovereignty."
"Our familes, our communities, and even our economy have seen the many important benefits that have come from recognizing equal marriage rights and, frankly, no downside... However, we have also seen how many of our married residents and their families are being hurt by a discriminatory, unprecedented, and, we believe, unconstitutional law."
- Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley
3 Hate-notes and/or Giggles:
the only problem with this is that if they succeed in arguing the "states rights" angle, then states in the south will not be able to be compelled to recognize gay marriage by federal mandate, essentially guaranteeing that they will never see marriage equality.
Remember, the federal government had to force the south to accept african american rights...
I think the goal is to make the government either accept that it is a state issue or it is a national one, instead of playing whichever suits them.
Even if it stays in the states, eventually I think there will be a point when there are too many states with gay marriage and the entire country will have to allow them. But that does require enough states to have gay marriage so that the federal government has to get involved....and that is several years off.
Either way I will be glad if DOMA goes.
Hurray for M-A!
I quite agree with Grant on this one. It *has* to come down to a state-by-state issue, at least for now: marriage equality at least has a chance in many states, but an all-or-nothing effort to get the entire country to accept gay marriage would--obviously and sadly--fall flat on its face. Yet, if a majority of states sign on, a national policy will become inevitable.
"Remember, the federal government had to force the south to accept african american rights..."
->True, the fed forced the South to give African-Americans de jure rights. But it was a century before African-Americans actually got de facto rights, thanks to such tactics as the grandfather clause.
Post a Comment