Same-Sex Marriage: The Problems with DOMA and the Pursuit for Equality
Believe it or not, same-sex marriage has been around since ancient times. At least two
Roman Emperors, Nero and Elagabalus, were in gay unions. It wasn’t until the advent of
Christianity that the practice of same sex marriage was out-lawed by the emperors
Constantius II and Constans in 342 AD and has continued to be through-out most of the
world until the twenty-first century (Boswell 83). With the advent of gay rights movement
in many industrialized countries, same-sex marriage has become more accepted. A prime
example of this is what lawmakers in the state of New York did on June 24, 2011. With a
thirty-three to twenty-nine vote, the legislature legalized same-sex marriage, making it the
largest state where gay and lesbian couples can now get married (New York Times 2011).
However, Even with recent legalization of gay marriage in some parts of the nation there
are still states that are strongly against it. States such as Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska and
Nevada have, by popular vote, passed Defense of Marriage Acts (DOMAs) as a
constitutional amendment. This gives states the legal right not to recognize same-sex
marriage from other states where it is legal. I will argue that DOMA legislation is
discriminatory and that same-sex couples have a legal right to the same marriage benefits
and public acknowledgment enjoyed by heterosexual couples. Also, that second-class
remedies such as civil unions and domestic partnerships are insufficient and in some cases
degrading. And lastly, that same-sex marriage may be beneficial to society and does not
pose a risk to traditional marriage.
So where did this debate begin? Well the current national debate on gay marriage was
sparked by the Supreme Court of Hawaii’s ruling on May 5, 1993 that the state could not
ban same-sex marriages without “a compelling reason” to do so (Baehr v. Lewin). The
case was sent back to a lower court but voters approved a constitutional amendment to ban
same-sex marriage before the courts could settle the issue. The case would go on to gain
national attention and influence over forty other states through out the next decade to pass
DOMAs that defined marriage as a “legal union between one man and one woman”
(Masci). Then on Sep. 21, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the federal Defense of
Marriage Act into law, which defined marriage at the federal level as between a man and a
