Same-Sex Marriage

Same-sex marriage is marriage between two people who are of the same sex (i.e., man & man, woman & woman). Other terms includes both the inclusive "civil marriage", "gender-neutral marriage", and "equal marriage"; and the exclusive "gay marriage", "homosexual marriage", "same-gender marriage", "lesbian marriage".

History in the U.S.

In 1972 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the United States Constitution does not require states to issue a marriage license to same-sex couples. Hence, this is an issue left up to each state. Currently in the United States, only Massachusetts recognizes same-sex marriage, Vermont and Connecticut offer civil unions, California, New Jersey, Maine and the District of Columbia grant benefits through domestic partnerships, and Hawaii has reciprocal beneficiary laws.

The movement to open civil marriage to same-sex couples achieved its first temporary success in 1993 with the decision of the Hawaii Supreme Court that the restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples would be presumed unconstitutional unless the state could demonstrate that it furthered a compelling state interest. In response to this decision the state constitution was amended to allow the legislature to preserve that restriction. A similar court decision in Alaska in 1998 led to an even stronger constitutional amendment, itself defining marriage as between one man and one woman. In further reaction to the Hawaii case, the federal Defense of Marriage Act (1996) provided that no state would be required to recognize a same-sex marriage from another state, and also defined marriage for federal-law purposes as opposite-sex. The majority of the states also passed their own "marriage protection acts." (In November 2004, eleven more U.S. states amended their constitutions to prohibit same-sex marriage.)

Nineteen states have constitutional amendments explicitly barring the recognition of same-sex marriage[20], forty-three states have legal statutes defining marriage to two persons of the opposite-sex. The territory of Puerto Rico ratified a DOMA in 1998.

Congress in 1996 passed the Defense of Marriage Act. (Regarding the name of the act, see below.) The Act is meant to prevent the courts from using the Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause to bring same-sex marriage to states that have rejected it by forcing one state to recognize the marriages of another state, although it is debated whether that clause would even have such an effect without the Act.

In 1999, the Vermont Supreme Court decided Baker v. Vermont, ruling that their state legislature must establish identical rights for same-sex couples similar to those of married opposite-sex couples. Legislators elected to create state level civil unions as what they argued was a middle-ground; this was signed into law by then-governor Howard Dean.

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to open civil marriage to same-sex couples. (Belgium became the second in 2003.) In 2002 through 2004, courts in six Canadian provinces held that the opposite-sex definition of marriage was contrary to Canada's Charter of Rights, and in 2005 federal legislation extended same-sex marriage to all of Canada. Same-sex marriage was also legalized in Spain in 2005 by statute, and in South Africa on December 1st 2005 by court decision (with effect delayed for twelve months to allow for legislative action).

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on November 18, 2003, ruled in the case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the state's Equal Protection Clause. The court stayed its ruling until May 17, 2004. Beginning on that date, hundreds of same-sex couples were legally married in Massachusetts.