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Legal Marriage Primer
Read This If You Don’t Read Another Thing About Legal Marriage by Demian © April 17 2006, Demian
The word “marriage” has two major meanings. One is a civil, legal status — the other is a religious or social status. It is critical to understand that the struggle for equal treatment is in the civil sphere, not with any church or religious philosophy.
Legal marriage triggers, at least, 150-to-350 laws in every U.S. state. Connecticut has 588 laws that are triggered by legal marriage. And on the Federal level, there are more than 1,138 such laws. These civil laws, in order to be just and fair, should apply to all citizens equally. The civil right of legal marriage is not just a mere matter of semantics, culture, or social grace. It is the right to be considered a full adult, and be treated the same as any other U.S. citizen.
In America, there is no state church, and no religious body has the right to dictate state policy. Civil marriage laws have been the sole domain of individual states until the Federal “DoMA” law in 1996. State marriage licenses are not religious in any way. They are legal contracts made between the couple and the state, not with any religious body. Clergy are not required for a license to be completed. The couple does not need to be a member of any church or temple. The marriage license does not require, as some churches do, that the couple be together “till death do you part.”
Marriages, as we know them today, do not look the same as they did several hundred years ago. State involvement in marriages is historically a new phenomenon. Many cultures around the world had marriage rites for same-sex couples, long before organized religions took up marriage ceremonies. In fact, in the very early days of the Catholic and Orthodox Church, male-male marriages were the first to get official church blessing; opposite-sex marriages came later. Not only are there no religious requirements to get a marriage licenses, you can get one even if you have committed anti-religious crimes, such as being a convicted rapist or murderer. You only need to be an adult and part of an opposite-sex couple. While religions have wildly differing views toward sexual orientation, many religions offer ceremonial blessings to same-sex couples. They do so because they recognize that all couples need social and spiritual support to be productive and survive in a healthy way. And these churches consider all congregants to be members-in-good-standing, regardless of orientation. Most contemporary biologists think that orientation is genetically predetermined, with a possible environmental component. Even if orientation were a choice, it should be constitutionally protected in the same way other choices are protected, such as religion and political affiliation.
To date, full and equal legal marriage for same-sex couples is only available in these locations:
No other legal procedure allows same-sex couples the same range of protections, responsibilities, and benefits that come with civil marriage.
A few of the rights triggered by legal marriage which are difficult or impossible to duplicate by other legal documents:
The entire struggle for workplace partner benefits derives from the fact that we are not treated the same as other families in the first place. Were there legal marriage for same-sex couples, we would automatically be eligible for benefits. Domestic partner benefits have come about because the marketplace recognizes the need to support all its workers in a fair manner. These benefits attract and keep better employees. They do not bring social acceptance or recognition for anything further than insurance, or time off to care for an ill partner or a partner’s children. Domestic partnership (rather than marriage) benefits are a form of apartheid because of the way these benefit plans are administered. In order to qualify, many plans require the employee to sign an affidavit stating that the relationship has existed for a year, that the couple lives together, and that the couple is mutually responsible for each other’s economic welfare. None of these are required of legally married employees. In fact, legally married couples are not required to live together and can sign nuptial agreements which keep their finances separated. After more than 13 years of tracking the social status of same-sex couples, Partners Task Force has concluded that the efforts to enact domestic partnership law is not in the best long-term interests of couples. Domestic partnership status is a far cry from equality.
As a community, there is little to gain by fighting for a second-class status like domestic partnership laws. It is not a stepping-stone to legal marriage because the two are legally and socially totally different entities. Fighting for the second class status of a domestic partnership takes the same amount of time and energy as fighting for legal marriage, and it encounters nearly the same level of resistance. The attempts to enact a few meager worker’s benefits in various municipalities has resulted in annulments by state officials (Hawaii), and has been struck down by courts (Austin, Tex., Chapel Hill, N.C., Minneapolis, Minn., Pima County, Ariz., and the State of Minnesota). Further, the radical right extremists do not really care whether it is marriage law or domestic partner status, only that it be denied to same-sex couples. They have said so since the first domestic partnership benefit was created in Berkeley in 1984. They publicly announced that they planned to stop the 1998 Hawaii governor’s domestic partnership bill (which eventually died because of huge disagreements about the idea itself).
Some have suggested that making some kind of a parallel structure to marriage — and calling it anything but marriage — would satisfy the need for legal protection of same-sex couples, as well as mollify the radical religious right wing. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t do either. No parallel structure to marriage law could possibly duplicate the more than 1,138 Federal laws and each state’s 150-250 laws which apply to anyone with a marriage license. To try to do so would be a legal, financial and logistical nightmare. Further, when there is a change in a marriage law, the “parallel marriage” law would likewise need to be changed as well. There is no guarantee that such a parallel structure in one state would be recognized by other states. And it is highly likely that it would not be recognized by the U.S. Federal system because of the “DoMA” law which denies recognition of same-sex couples. It certainly would not be recognized by other countries — just as the “Registered Partnerships” of Northern Europe are not recognized anywhere else.
Every culture has defined marriage differently. Every age has changed the way people are related by law and custom. Marriage in the West used to mean that the husband completely owned the wife and the children. Now, a wife is no longer property and may bring charges against a husband for unwanted abuse. Another tradition, denial of license to an interracial marriage, was enforced by prison terms in America by 13 states until the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 1969. It is now time for the marriage laws to be updated and conform to the real needs of same-sex couples. Many churches have done this already in the spiritual and social arena. It is now time for our states to do the same in the legal sphere.
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