Political Issues of Same-Sex Marriage

The political aspects of whether same-sex couples should be allowed to federal and government recognized marriages are a very complex issue. There are basically two sides to the political argument of whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. On one side are the liberals who feel that marriage is a civil right that should be denied based on the basis of a person's sexual orientation. On the other side you have conservatives who feel that marriage is an institution in which should only constitute one man and one woman. In this report we are going to examine how the issue of same-sex marriages are affecting our current political environment, how politics is affecting the movement for …show more content…

Some have argued the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because it gives the state the right do not acknowledge a marriage from another state and that it would not survive judicial scrutiny under the United States Supreme Court because of this. As of this writing, the "Full Faith and Credit" constitutionality issue has yet to be brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. One item that the interviewees did not know was that there was a possibility that the Defense of Marriage Act could be held constitutional. This could be done in that the Unites States legal system has also long recognized a "public policy exception" to issues that a laws unconstitutionality or claims of judicial mistreatment. In particular the United States Supreme Court has recognized a "public policy exception" to the Full Faith and Credit clause. So if a law of one state conflicts with the public policy of another state, federal courts in the past have been reluctant to enforce the pronouncements of another state that contravene with the homes state's public policy. The public policy exception has been applied in cases of marriage and civil judgments in the past, so it could be possible for the Supreme Court to find that the Defense of Marriage Act is constitutional as it applies to the current political "public policy." The interviewees did not know that the Defense of Marriage Act only affected federal laws as they apply to