Replies

Presumably the individual states have legal agreements to honour marriage

Nope, they don't need them. The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution requires states to recognize each others' laws, so a marriage in Nevada needs to be recognized by Arizona.

If Massachusetts issues marriage licences to gay couples, does this mean that the other states have to honour them unless they pass legislation explicitly not recognising them?

Other states have to honor a marriage legally performed under Mass. law. They can't pass legislation not recognising them. That's why it is such a huge deal if Mass. allows gay marriage- all other states will be forced to recognize such unions.

THE MARRIAGE PROTECTION ACT
U.S. REP. JOHN HOSTETTLER

WHAT IT DOES
· The Marriage Protection Act removes jurisdiction from certain federal courts over questions pertaining to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

· The Marriage Protection Act will remove the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction, as well as remove inferior federal court original and appellate jurisdiction over DOMA’s full faith and credit provision. This provision in DOMA codified that no State would be required to give full faith and credit to a marriage license issued by another State, if that relationship was between two people of the same sex.

· The Marriage Protection Act also removes appellate jurisdiction from the Supreme Court and the inferior federal courts over DOMA’s marriage definition provision, which defines the terms “marriage” and “spouse,” for purposes of federal law as terms only applying to relationships between people of the opposite sex.

WHAT IT MEANS
· This bill preserves each State’s traditional right to determine its own marriage policies by preventing the federal courts from interfering with DOMA’s full faith & credit provision (consistent with the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution).

· Under the Marriage Protection Act, any question pertaining to the interpretation of DOMA’s full faith & credit provision would be left to State courts and legislatures, where marriage law jurisdiction has traditionally resided (consistent with Article IV, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution).

· Under the Marriage Protection Act, any question pertaining to the interpretation of DOMA’s marriage definition provision could reach no higher than federal district court.

· Federal judges and Supreme Court Justices are not the elected representatives of the people, and the Marriage Protection Act will prevent federal courts from overstepping their duties and legislating from the bench regarding marriage policy.

· Congress has a constitutional duty and authority to put a check on the Judicial branch. In light of recent federal court decisions that do not respect traditional areas of law reserved for the states, the federal courts could be only one decision away from creating a “right” to homosexual marriage (consistent with Article I, Section 8, and Article III, Sections 1 & 2 of the U.S. Constitution).

Thomas Jefferson, 1820: In addition to refusing to seat Mr. Marbury, Jefferson clarified his rejection of the doctrine of judicial supremacy when he wrote: “[T]o consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps...[A]nd their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The constitution has erected no such single tribunal.”

LET'S HOPE FOR THIS LAW.