Legalize it.

We didn’t necessarily set out to make this a political blog, but you can’t really have a big lesbian wedding in the middle of Indiana without discussing politics and law. A few weeks ago, I attended a mini-symposium on DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) and the future of same-sex marriage, hosted by the IU Maurer School of Law.

Bear with me. This is gonna be a long one.

Note: After writing this post, I’ve realized that I have trouble being witty and to-the-point like Anna V. If you are limited on time or just want me to get to the point, please scroll down to “Hey, get to the point!”

For those who’d like to brave the novel I wrote, I’ve inserted pictures of our pets to break up all of the “blah blah blah politics blah blah blah laws blah blah blah homos blah blah blah” talk.

Thanks for reading my ramblings! -Anna S.

Defense of Marriage Act

First, let’s talk DOMA. Because I have no kind of political or law background, I find it difficult to read the wording in DOMA and understand the implications. However, from what I gather, DOMA establishes two main policies:

1. States are not obligated to recognize same-sex marriages, even if they were performed legally in a different state.
2. The federal government may not recognize any same-sex marriage, even if it was performed in a state where same-sex marriage is legal.

There are various rationales the federal government had behind implementing DOMA, and here are a few:

• Responsible procreation (haha!)
• Defending and nurturing the institution of traditional heterosexual marriage (hahaha!)
• Protecting state sovereignty (This is actually the opposite of what DOMA does, which I will explain soon.)
• Preserving scarce government resources (Congress offered to do a financial analysis on the impact of DOMA, and the committee said no. Later when the analysis was done, it was shown that DOMA is actually costing more money)
• Collecting and honoring morality in human sexuality (Oh man, these jokes are so funny!)

As the keynote speaker, Maura Healey, commented, “If you just scratch the surface of some of these rationales, you will see that they’re irrational”.

Massachusetts vs. DOMA

Maura is the Chief of the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. She is leading Massachusetts’ constitutional challenge to section 3 of DOMA (the 2nd of the items listed above; apparently there are 3 sections of DOMA, but I can only find explanations for 2 of them). Same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts. However, because DOMA prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, Massachusetts is in a tough situation.

Maura discussed the fact that there are over 1100 places in state and federal law where marriage is used to determine policies, benefits, and statuses, from birth to beyond death. This number really puts into perspective the implications of denying legal marriage rights to a large group of people.

She also said that since legalizing same-sex marriage in 2004, the marriage rate in Massachusetts is as high as it’s been in the recent past, and continues to increase. Massachusetts continues to have the lowest divorce rate in the nation. Additionally, studies have shown that in Massachusetts, same-sex couples and their families are now mentally and financially better off.

With the establishment of DOMA, the federal government is imposing the national definition of marriage over each state’s definition of marriage. DOMA requires Massachusetts to discriminate against same-sex couples, even though as a state, Massachusetts chose to not discriminate against same-sex couples.

One of the more serious implications of this situation is that Massachusetts (and other states in which same-sex marriage is legal) has to choose between complying with federal regulations and risking loss of state funding from the federal government. As you probably know, when the federal government allocates money to states, the money often comes with stipulations. If Massachusetts wants to continue receiving federal funding for a number of programs and institutions, they have to play by the federal government’s rules.

Here’s a real-life example of how this is a problem: A Vietnam war veteran in Massachusetts died, and was buried in a federally funded cemetery. He and his husband wanted to be buried next to each other. However, law requires that in this cemetery (probably a veteran cemetery), couples can only be buried together if they are legally married. If DOMA didn’t exist, there would be no problem with burying these legally wed (in the state of Massachusetts) partners next to each other in the cemetery. However, with DOMA in place, burying these men next to each other would be in direct violation of federal policy. If Massachusetts were to grant the couple the right to be buried next to each other in this cemetery, they would risk losing federal funding for all veteran programs and benefits. Pretty messed up, right?

Maura’s case is this: For the past 200+ years, the federal government has always deferred to states’ definition of marriage. So why start imposing a national definition of marriage now?

If Maura’s case wins, then the state of Massachusetts will be able to allow same-sex marriage, as well as all of the corresponding benefits and rights, without fear of penalization from the federal government. It will set a precedent that the federal government may not enforce a federal definition of marriage.

Same-sex marriage outside of Massachusetts

But what about states in which same-sex marriage is illegal? Wouldn’t we (i.e., the homos) benefit from having a federally enforced policy requiring states to perform and recognize same-sex marriages?

I asked Maura about this, and she responded with examples from when interracial marriage was illegal.

• Perez v. Sharp (1948): The Supreme Court of California recognized that interracial bans on marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection clause) of the Federal Constitution. This was the first decision of a state to not support an anti-miscegenation (anti-interracial marriage) law.
• Loving v. Virginia (1967): The United States Supreme Court, by a 9-0 vote, declared Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute, the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924″, unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

So, according to Maura, as soon as we (you know, the homos) have a case like Loving v. Virginia, we won’t have to worry about a) the federal government taking rights away from same-sex married couples, or b) individual states banning same-sex marriage.

And the good news is that there are a number (albeit a small number) of cases that could make great progress for the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. But instead of trying to explain them, I’ll just point you to GLAD’s DOMA Section 3 Challenge.

For those of you still reading, you’re doing great! Just a little bit more, and then you’re free to comment about how I shouldn’t ramble so much on the blog.

Social barriers and progress

One of the panel members at the symposium was Brian Powell (IU professor and author of Counted Out: Same-sex Relations and Americans’ Definitions of Family), and he offered a sociological perspective. He reported his findings from his “Constructing the Family Surveys (2003 and 2006), which asked more than 1500 people to explain their views on a broad range of issues, including gay marriage and adoption, single parenthood, the influence of biological and social factors in child development, religious ideology, and the legal rights of unmarried partners.” It was interesting to see the variation in what people consider to be family.

For example, a lot of people think that an unmarried gay couple isn’t a family, but a married gay couple is. Many of these people also believe that if the married gay couple moves to a state that doesn’t legally recognize their marriage, they are still a family. Hmm.

The survey also asked about attitudes towards civil unions. Powell explained that a lot of people support same-sex civil unions, but think that same-sex marriage should be illegal. However, many of these same people define a civil union as a marriage performed by a justice of the peace. So really, they’re defining marriage as something performed in a religious institution. They actually DO support the legality of same-sex marriage, but they don’t think that churches should have to perform same-sex marriage if they don’t want to.

And that’s one of the huge misconceptions of the legalization of same-sex marriage. If same-sex marriage is legalized, no religious institution will have to perform same-sex marriages if they don’t want to. So, you know, spread the good word on that one.

And finally (yes, this is coming to an end!), Powell reported that Americans’ opinions towards same-sex marriage are at a tipping point. More and more people (especially young people) are starting to support the legality of same-sex marriage.

Hey, get to the point!

So here’s my point:

We’re having a big wedding so we can celebrate our love and commitment, and perhaps more importantly, so we can have a giant awesome party in a giant awesome theater with a giant group of family and friends.

However, given current same-sex marriage laws and the overall political climate in the United States, we can’t ignore the social and political aspects of having a wedding in a state (and country) that bans same-sex marriage. We can’t deny that even after we have a giant party for ourselves (which will be totally awesome), we still won’t be legally married (which will not be awesome at all).

We hope you will join us on our big day, and we don’t want any of this bass-ackwards country’s discriminatory laws to prevent you from dancing until you can’t dance no mo’. But in addition to partying with us, we hope you can understand the social and political implications of (and barriers to) our wedding and marriage.

And that’s it! If you read this entire post, you deserve some kind of prize. We just can’t really get you a prize because we’re, like, planning a wedding or something.

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