Reply #53: Passing a federal law to define marriage? Now I KNOW ... [View All]

[struggle4progress]

these people are posturing buttheads. Clinton signed DOMA into law back in September 1996, a few months after it passed both houses of Congress. The wingnuts are so desperate for an issue that they're threatening to do something that ... that ... hey! we did that eight years ago!

"Defense Of Marriage Act" 5/96 H.R. 3396 Summary/Analysis

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The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) does two things. First, it provides that no State shall be required to give effect to a law of any other State with respect to a same-sex "marriage." Second, it defines the words "marriage" and "spouse" for purposes of Federal law.

The first substantive section of the bill is an exercise of Congress'
power under the "Effect" clause of Article IV, section 1 of the
Constitution (the Full Faith and Credit Clause) to allow each State (or other political jurisdiction) to decide for itself whether it wants to grant legal status to same-sex "marriage." This provision is necessary in light of the possibility of Hawaii giving sanction to same-sex "marriage" under its state law, as interpreted by its state courts, and other states being placed in the position of having to give "full faith and credit" to Hawaii's interpretation of what constitutes "marriage." Although so-called "conflicts of law" principles do not necessarily compel such a result, approximately 30 states of the union are sufficiently alarmed by such a prospect to have initiated legislative efforts to defend themselves against any compulsion to acknowledge same-sex "marriage."

This is a problem most properly resolved by invoking Congress' authority under the Constitution to declare what "effect" one State's acts, records, and judicial proceedings shall have in another State. Congress has invoked this authority recently on two other occasions; in the Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act of 1980, which required each State to enforce child custody determinations made by the home State if made consistently with the provisions of the Act; and in the Full Faith and Credit for child Support Order Act of 1994, which required each State to enforce child support orders made by the child's State if made consistently with the provisions of the Act.

The second substantive section of the bill amends the U.S. Code to make explicit what has been understood under federal law for over 200 years; that a marriage is the legal union of a man and a woman as husband and wife, and a spouse is a husband or wife of the opposite sex. The DOMA definition of marriage is derived most immediately from a Washington state case from 1974, Singer v. Hara, which is included in the 1990 edition of Black's Law Dictionary. More than a century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court spoke of the "union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony." Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15, 45 (1985).
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http://www.lectlaw.com/files/leg23.htm