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Where can we get a legal marriage license?
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As of July 2011,
7 American states or jurisdictions, and
10 world governments offer legal marriage to same-sex couples.
For the current list of jurisdictions offering legal marriage:
Please see below: Governments that Offer Legal Marriage]
Suits for legal marriage began in the U.S. in 1971.
[See our article: Legal Marriage Court Cases: A Timeline.]
The U.S. government — which has never had any jurisdiction regarding legal marriage — passed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA) in 1996, which unconstitutionally prohibits recognizing a same-sex marriage for federal purposes (taxes, job benefits, immigration, etc.) and allows states to ignore a same-sex marriage from another state.
[See our article: “Defense of Marriage Act”.]
This law is unconstitutional on several counts, and a U.S. Supreme Court case was launched in March 2009, which could take years to even be heard. Several other suits were launched in 2010.
In the meantime, same-sex legal marriage is recognized in the U.S. states and other countries around the world, however, it is not honored by the U.S. government. This means that a same-sex legally married couples are taxed as if single, are denied Social Security partnership benefits, and cannot be used for immigration purposes.
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“Legal marriage” or “legal marriage for same-sex couples,” not “gay marriage.”
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No one uses the term “straight marriage.” In reality, we do not know the sexual orientation of married partners. The same is true for members of same-sex couples. The marriage discrimination faced by same-sex couples is discrimination based on their apparent sex, not on their orientation.
Lesbian or gay people can get legally married — as long as they marry an opposite-sex partner. The fight is for the same access to legal marriage as all other citizen have. To call it “gay marriage” suggests a different status.
Legal marriage is a state-defined contract currently available in most jurisdictions only to a man and a woman. Every state has a different set of laws — numbering from 160 to more than 250 — and the U.S. Federal system has more than 1,138 laws — which are triggered by legal marriage.
These laws interface with almost every sphere of social interaction. They treat a family as a legal unit, which is especially important during times of change, such as divorce, or during a family crisis, such as the right for a spouse to make medical decisions. Marriage laws allow for the understanding of the married couple as full adults in our culture.
State Laws Triggered by Legal Marriage - a Sample
Assumption of Spouse’s Pension
Automatic Inheritance
Automatic Housing Lease Transfer
Bereavement Leave
Burial Determination
Certain Property Rights
Child Custody
Crime Victim’s Recovery Benefits
Divorce Protections
Domestic Violence Protection
Exemption from Property Tax on Partner’s Death
Immunity from Testifying Against Spouse
Insurance Breaks
Joint Adoption and Foster Care
Joint Bankruptcy
Joint Parenting (Insurance Coverage, School Records)
Medical Decisions on Behalf of Partner
Name Change if Desired
Reduced Rate Memberships
Sick Leave to Care for Partner
Visitation of Partner’s Children
Visitation of Partner in Hospital or Prison
Wrongful Death (Loss of Consort) Benefits
Couples married by a state government are automatically granted a broad range of rights at the federal level. These rights affect federal employees such as civil servants and the military.
Federal Laws Triggered by Legal Marriage - a Sample
Access to Military Stores
Assumption of Spouse’s Pension
Bereavement Leave
Immigration
Insurance Breaks
Medical Decisions on Behalf of Partner
Sick Leave to Care for Partner
Social Security Survivor Benefits
Sick Leave to Care for Partner
Tax Breaks for Married Couples
Veteran’s Discounts
Visitation of Partner in Hospital or Prison
For the purposes of nearly all of the above items, same-sex couples are considered legal strangers, and thereby unable to be covered by them.
Although marriage contracts are governed by state law, the federal government uses marital status as the qualification for more than 1,138 federally regulated rights and responsibilities.
[Please see our article: U.S. Laws for Married]
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What about ceremonial or church marriage?
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Ceremonial marriage may be officiated by church officials, or anyone you choose. Many churches marry same-sex couples. Church officials are vested to oversee signing of legal marriage documents, but they have no control over their legal content.
Ceremonial marriages in and of themselves involve no civil laws and carry no legal benefits or responsibilities.
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What about common-law marriage?
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Common law marriage is only available in certain states and has never applied to same-sex couples. It allows for some marriage law to apply to opposite-sex couples who have lived together a certain length of time.
[Please see our article: Common-Law Marriage States]
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What about domestic partnership registration?
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The few benefits offered with a domestic partnership registration are no substitute for the numerous rights and responsibilities of legal marriage. Registration is a means by which some cities allow opposite- and same-sex couples to go on public record as a non-married couple.
These registrations usually offer little-to-no benefits, yet may possibly be used to establish legal responsibility for debts after a relationship ends. Their eventual effects are largely unknown because they have little court history. Cities usually charge $35-73 to register — about the same as, or more than, a legal marriage license.
Many private employers and municipalities offer domestic partner benefits to their workers. These often depend on signing an affidavit (some ask for a city or state registration), which frequently defines the economic relationship between the employee and the employee’s partner. Like registrations, their legal status is uncertain. These affidavits and registrations could be used in court against a partner after a relationship ended.
The existance of domestic partnerships is completely due to the fight for legal marriage. While some states would not allow legal marriage, they did see the necessity for some sort of social contract, and created the concept of domestic partnership and civil unions.
For more information about registration and workplace benefits, please see Partners’
Domestic Partner Benefits — Philosophy and Provider List.]
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My partner is of the same sex as me and not a U.S. citizen. Can we get a legal marriage license, thereby allowing citizenship?
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No. Even after legal marriage were to become available to same-sex couples, the Federal DoMA law, would deny your family legal status. DoMA would first need to be rescinded by congress, or ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
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Why all the opposition to legal marriage for same-sex couples?
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Prejudice.
Prejudice, which is based in ignorance, supports hatred toward gay and lesbian people. This hatred requires that gay people remain second-class citizens and their relationships be unrecognized on any level. This prejudice makes clear that legal marriage, or even the inferior status of domestic partnerships, should not be available for same-sex couples.
The current (November 2010) iteration of this sentiment lives in the National Organization for Marriage, the nation’s leading anti-gay group. While their stated mission is to stop same-sex marriage, they are now actively working to defeat the passage of the Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act (SB 1716) in Illinois. This bill would allow same-sex couples only to enter into a civil union.
Opposition is also generated by right-wing groups because they rely on this prejudice to bring in donations. For these extremist groups, anti-gay hatred is a bread and butter issue.
Prejudice has fueled the following anti-gay arguments, each seriously flawed:
Disintegration of Marriage
Only if one believes that same-sex couples are inferior, or if one hates homosexual men and women, could one think that access to marriage by same-sex couples would somehow debase marriage.
Supporting same-sex marriage in no way renders opposite-sex marriages invalid, nor does it mock them. Opponents seem greatly disturbed that once these marriages — and homosexuals in general — are acceptable, that lesbians and gay men will (somehow) become greater in number and gain power. Some also predict it will signal the falling of the economy, the culture and the “American way of life.”
These wild accusation all falsely presume enormous powers to sexual orientation, and that same-sex couples are not fully human, not full citizens and part of America.
Contrary to this disintegration or a debasing claim, allowing same-sex couples the same right to legal marriage actually enhances the institution of marriage. If marriage is such a great institution, it makes sense to encourage more to participate.
Tradition
The nature of marriage has changed through the centuries. In Biblical days, marriage was a brutal event — children and wives were treated like slaves and used as barter. 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.
Native Americans and slaves were once denied access to legal marriage. 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 another change.
[Please see: Marriage Traditions in Various Times and Cultures for information on huge variations in what constitutes a marriage.]
Religion
In America, we have a very strict separation of church and state. There is no state religion. No church can dictate state policy. Marriage contract law is designed by states. Most opponents to same-sex marriage want their personal religion to dictate state policy.
[Please see: Media Resources: Ceremonial Marriage for information on “Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe” by John Boswell.]
After same-sex couples, what then?
When all that is being asked for is allowing two people of any biological sex to enter into a marriage contract, the idea suggested by opponents of asking for any combination of numbers of people and any combination of relationships is pure fantasy. Allowing equal treatment of a family of two does not begin to fulfil the dreaded specter of this type of “slippery slope” argument.
Procreation
If the sole purpose for legal marriage was to have children, why then aren’t all sterile persons forbidden to marry? Or why do not couples, once no longer baring children, be forced to be un-married?
The reality is that no marriage is invalidated because the couple does not want children or cannot conceive. It is two-faced to deny same-sex couples, many of whom already have custody of children.
Children
All studies of children raised by lesbians and gay men have found them to be well-adjusted and comparable to those raised by opposite-sex parents. No proof exists that gay people are unfit as parents.
Cost
Yes, there is a public sector cost to providing equal treatment. Same-sex couples would benefit in direct, financial ways by saving on health, car and other types of insurance, as well as in the areas of banking, dual parent adoptions, pensions, death and Social Security benefits, and memberships, etc.
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The Social Benefit to Allowing Same-sex Marriage
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The social system would save money over time, because same-sex couples would be legal responsible for each other’s welfare. Welfare or other governmental grants are harder to get if one has a legal spouse with an income.
Rather than take crowded civil court time to resolve dissolution or custody disputes, same-sex couples could use the quicker and less expensive family courts.
Families able to obtain job benefits for their partners can maintain a healthier household, which also costs society less in the long-term.
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What national groups focus on winning legal marriage?
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Your help is needed to gain full equal status. Please join these organizations and send money.
Freedom to Marry Collaborative - Evan Wolfson
116 West 23rd St., Suite 500, New York, NY 10011
212-851-8418; fax 646-375-2069; evan@freedomtomarry.org
freedomtomarry.org
Coordinating gay and non-gay leaders.
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
120 Wall St., #1500, New York, NY 10005
212-809-8585 x228; fax 212-809-0055; general@lambdalegal.org - on marriage issues: lldefmarry@aol.com
lambdalegal.org
Copy the LLDEF The Marriage Resolution and ask organizations in your area to sign on.
National Gay & Lesbian Task Force
2320 - 17th St., NW, Washington DC 20009
202-332-6483; fax 202-332-0207; TTY 202-332-6219; ngltf.org
Buy a copy of their important organizing tool To Have, to Hold ($11).
Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples
Box 9685, Seattle, WA 98109
206-935-1206; demian@buddybuddy.com
buddybuddy.com
Extensive essays, legal documents, and data on marriage.
State organizations supporting legal marriage: Freedom to Marry Affiliate Organizations
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Governments that offer Legal Marriage
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