A HUGE Bottle of White-out!

I began a post on the subject of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) vs. allowing same-sex couples to marry in December of 2010.  I edited it a few times, but never posted it; after recent events, I've decided to made a few more edits and post.

This last week, the Supreme Court of the United States made a determination that not allowing same-sex marriages and their participants the same benefits as one-man-one-woman marriages was discriminatory.

I have maintained for a very long time that if our government decides to allow marriage between people solely based on love; while allowing them all the benefits of marriage (but none of the natural benefits of child-bearing); our country is doomed in many ways -- least of all in our population and economy.  This is not just a religious problem but an issue of historic proportion.

It will also open Pandora's box to a host of other related issues, including adoption/foster/child welfare, divorce and may well open the doors to polygamy and child-marriage being considered acceptable and legal.

My original blog post referenced a letter dated January 31, 1997 written by Barry R. Bedrick Associate General Counsel to The Honorable Henry J. Hyde, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.  The letter addressed Mr. Hyde's query "in your September 5, 1996, letter, to identify federal laws in which benefits, rights, and privileges are contingent on marital status."

The letter and supporting documentation can be found here.

Mr. Bedrick's cover letter concludes:  “The result is a collection of 1049 federal laws classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor. “

It continues…

“To give readers a sense of the kinds of federal laws in which marital status is a factor, we classified the laws on the list into the following 13 categories⁴:

• Social Security and Related Programs, Housing, and Food Stamps
• Veterans' Benefits
• Taxation
• Federal Civilian and Military Service Benefits
• Employment Benefits and Related Laws
• Immigration, Naturalization, and Aliens
• Indians
• Trade, Commerce, and Intellectual Property
• Financial Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
• Crimes and Family Violence
• Loans, Guarantees, and Payments in Agriculture
• Federal Natural Resources and Related Laws
• Miscellaneous Laws

While we believe this classification scheme is useful for organizing the hundreds of statutes on the list, and for representing the range of federal programs and activities in which the law makes marital status relevant, it should not be regarded as definitive.

⁴The order of the categories is not significant, except that the first four are those in which marital status is most pervasive, and are the largest.”

Another source I read in my research was located at Great Green Room.

This post discusses the "Legal Consequences of Marriage".  

"Summary: To understand what we are talking about when we talk about extending the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage to gay couples, it is important to understand what those rights and responsibilities are. After some general discussion of what marriage is in a broader sense, this essay provides a summary of the ways in which married couples are treated specially by the law."

The author discusses what marriage is; civilly, fundamentally and religiously.  

"Public recognition of a marriage by the community, the churches and the government can be interlinked. Often a single wedding ceremony can formally establish all three. But they are still fundamentally separate. You can have a civil wedding without a religious wedding, a religious wedding without a civil wedding, and community recognition without either."

The author references the letter I used above and further clarifies a few points:  

"In 1997, when Congress asked the General Accounting Office for a summary of the Federal Laws that treat married people differently from unmarried people, their report turned up 1049 such laws. There are probably more. Even the GAO wasn't eager to do all the work necessary to make a complete list.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The fifty states each have their laws that frequently give special rights and responsibilities to married couples. Connecticut's Office of Legislative Research did a similar report on laws in which marital status was a factor, and found 588 such laws. Other states probably have about as many, all different from each other, so on the state level there are probably 30,000 laws relating to marriage. And who knows what laws various municipalities might have.

Besides that, there are also companies that give different treatment to married couples. I'm no lawyer, so I'm not sure how legalization of gay marriages will effect what private companies do, but my guess is that one way or another, most private companies would eventually fall in line with government policy.

So, here's my best list of the more significant legal effects of marriage:

• Taxes: Taxes are different for married couples. Tax law treats a married couple almost like they were one person. This has advantages and disadvantages
• Health Care: When a person is seriously ill and not able to make their own decisions, hospitals regularly turn to the person's spouse to make health care decisions, up to and including whether to disconnect a person from life support.
• Judicial: Married people cannot be required to testify against each other in court.
• Government Assistance: Married people can get higher payments from some government assistance programs, including Medicaid, supplemental security income, and federal employee and veteran's disability payments.
• Death Benefits: If your spouse dies, you may be eligible for a wide range of different benefits.
• Bankruptcy: Married couples can file jointly for bankruptcy which can be beneficial.
• Immigration and Citizenship: Spouses of legal aliens are automatically legal and are not subject to immigration quotas.
• Divorce: The legal system often provides mediation services and expedited hearings for married couples who are breaking up.
• Government Employment: Spouses of veterans can get preferential treatment in hiring for government jobs.
• Retirement Plans: Changing the benefits in a retirement plan often requires written consent from your spouse.
• Domestic Violence: There are state and federal laws relating to the special circumstance of domestic violence.
• Parenthood: If a married woman has a baby, her husband is assumed to be the father.
• Adoption: In some states, it may be necessary for a couple to be married to be able to adopt children. 

[I've only listed the topic headings; not all of the post.  Please read for yourself for more details.]

Of course, with any relationship, there can always be a break-up.  Divorce is messy enough between one-man-one-woman marriages:  Division of assets, custody and visitation for the children, child support, etc.  Courts have traditionally awarded custody to the mother for many years, birth parents take priority over adoptive or foster parents in many custody cases and then there's the discussion and medical web of surrogate parents and donors.  This entire process will feed the court systems for a great many years while no one truly wins (does anyone win in divorce now?).

So, now that the President of the United States, the government and the Supreme Court have upheld the "right for everyone to marry", they will be required to change 13 categories of the tax code in addition to a host of other legal and religious rulings.  Changing the definition from “one man and one woman” in any way will allow for marriage and civil unions of all modes to be recognized.  If marriage is no longer between one man and one woman, but between consenting persons, then what defines “consent”?  What determines "person"? You cannot define consent by age or race or gender or species; moreover you would need to open consent to any being that did not disagree with the union. 

Can the government expect to deny the right to marry to anyone who says they're in love?  Is love is any less real and strong between a 14 year old and a 50 year old than between two persons of close age?  Can it be upheld as law that if love between two is acceptable, then love between more must be as well?  Can it still be considered illegal for cousins or relatives to marry?

What about the states that have not yet allowed same-sex marriages?  Will they be forced to uphold the federal standards instead of their state laws?  At what point will the government override the beliefs of many churches and religions that have to this point been able to refuse to marry couples that do not share their beliefs?  The government has already been asked to rule about businesses who choose not to serve clients based on difference of beliefs; in Colorado, Washington and New Mexico, just to name a few.  

Changing the availability of marriage to be a "right" is dangerous ground to tread; and one not easily swallowed by many people.  20 years ago I would have never dreamed that people of the same sex would be allowed to be lawfully married and have the same standing as couples who married to follow their religious and moral beliefs about family, love and children.

If marriage is only about love and benefits and rights, then it demeans the beauty of the vows for every person; regardless of sexual orientation.

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.
Alexis de Tocqueville 


Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
George Washington