Legal Recognition of Gay Marriage: Equal Rights Analysis

Introduction: The Case for Legal Recognition

Many same-sex couples want to be granted the right to legally marry, for a simple reason: they are in love with each other. They want to honor their relationship in the greatest way society has to offer — by making a public commitment to stand together through whatever life brings. While they receive some state-level protections, they do not receive most of the federal emotional and economic benefits and protections that come with marriage. They are denied the right to equal protection under both the U.S. Constitution and some state constitutions.

This paper argues that supporting gay marriage through legal recognition is the most appropriate form of recognizing same-sex partnerships, because it eliminates discrimination occurring at the federal level and in many states. Drawing on state court decisions from 2009 and 2012 and on the landmark 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, the paper demonstrates that the currently fragmented picture regarding the legality of same-sex marriage urgently requires a nationwide legal solution. The final section presents opposing arguments and the reasons why they do not withstand scrutiny.

The recommendation of this paper is the policy of legal recognition of gay marriages as the most appropriate form of recognizing same-sex partnerships. Gay persons do not enjoy most of the federal and state emotional and economic benefits that come with marriage and are thus discriminated against. Two state court rulings from 2009 and one federal appeals court decision from 2012 support this position. Most importantly, a Supreme Court decision from 2003 suggests that — while the gay marriage controversy has many dimensions, including disagreements over religious and social norms — much of the debate is ultimately a purely legal one.

Key Court Decisions and the Legal Landscape

On May 21, 2009, the California Supreme Court closed another chapter in the state's long-running fight over same-sex marriage when it upheld a 2008 voter-approved ballot initiative, known as Proposition 8, which amended the California state constitution to ban gay marriage. A month earlier, on April 27, 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court had unanimously ruled that a state law defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman violated the Iowa Constitution's guarantee of equal protection (Masci and Merriam 1).

Most important in this regard is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in 2003 that marked a decisive turning point in the history of lesbians and gay men in the United States. In June 2003, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, extending the right to privacy — which includes the right to make decisions about one's intimate life — to lesbians and gay men. The decision was both hailed and denounced as a sign of a dramatic shift in attitudes toward lesbians and gays. Just seventeen years earlier, in its Bowers v. Hardwick ruling, the Court had dismissed the claim that anyone had a right to engage in homosexual activities as "facetious." In Lawrence, Justice Anthony Kennedy embraced the "liberty" of gay people to form relationships "whether or not [they are] entitled to formal recognition in the law," and condemned the Bowers decision for "demean[ing] the lives of homosexual persons" (Chauncey 1).

The most recent court decision in this series addressing the unconstitutionality of denying gay persons the right to marry came in early February 2012, when a federal appeals court in California ruled that Proposition 8 — the ban on same-sex marriage — is unconstitutional. The decision illustrates that gay marriage in the U.S. is more than a black-and-white issue. Officially, the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriage, but some individual states do, and many more have laws or constitutional amendments that offer limited rights to same-sex couples (Mach 1).