Legal question about gay marriage

[Vertas]

I have a question about the law and how it might relate to gay marriage.

For argument's sake, let say Mass. allows full legal marriage, for gay and straight people. If a gay couple married there, legally, go to another state, and are refused to be recognized as a married couple, couldn't they say this violates the 'full faith and credit' clause of the Constitution?

As I understand that.. a contract in one state is valid in another. So if one state allows a 16 year old to marry, for example and they move to a state that doesn't allow that.. they are still married.

Or am I off base? All the DOMA laws in the world can't override the Constitution, can it? Ultimately, that is.

A confused Vertas..

[Damieux]

I don't see a viable contracts clause claim here, but the full faith and credit challenge is very much an undecided issue. Here is a web page that discusses it succinctly: Full Faith and Credit clause.

[Graeblyn]

Link to article

i have a feeling that the more States adopt Gay marriage and incindeces thereof (like Domestic Partnerships and civil unions), the more and more the more my hopes are raised that the DOMA will eventually be struck down because of the full faith and credit clause and the equal protection amendment.

[Frobozz]

It isn't so much a contract as it is a liscense... Each state has the right to refuse, deny, etc the liscenses from other states as it sees fit.

[Vertas]

Originally posted by Frobozz
It isn't so much a contract as it is a liscense... Each state has the right to refuse, deny, etc the liscenses from other states as it sees fit.

Okay, as I see your reply.. if you, Frobozz, got married in New York, and then moved to Arizona, you're saying the state of Arizona can decide you don't meet their requirements for being married, and just void your marriage? It's not like you're a brain surgeon or a hair dresser and can prove your fitness for a liscense.

I can't believe any state would or has done that. I may be wrong, I haven't researched it.

Vertas

[Graeblyn]

Originally posted by Frobozz
It isn't so much a contract as it is a liscense... Each state has the right to refuse, deny, etc the liscenses from other states as it sees fit.

I'm not a law student, so I'll just repeat the basis for belief that the high court might strike down laws that seek non-recognition by some states for marriage licenses issued to same sex couples in other states.

In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court overturn all state bans on legalized interracial marriage. If all states must issue and recognize licenses for interracial couples, the nelief is that after a couple states start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the Court will extend the 1967 ruling to apply to these marriages as well, and the U.S. will have de facto legalized same sex marriage nationwide. Incidentally, in this same decision the "Right to Marry" was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in a direct refutiation of the argument made at the time that licenses were a privelege extended by the State, in much the same way as Driver's Licenses and Hunting Licences still are legally seen as privileges to this day.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying I think a Supreme Court ruling favoring gay marriage will happen soon, but I DO think it will happen eventually, the Defense of Marriage Act notwithstanding.

Short of a Constitutional Amendment, same sex marriage recognition in the U.S. is inevitable. Massachusetts is just the first REAL strong step in a long process.