Subject:
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Re: Louisiana bans gay marriages
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.people.lgbt
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Date:
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Sun, 19 Sep 2004 22:36:17 GMT
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Viewed:
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2363 times
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In lugnet.people.lgbt, Rob Hendrix wrote:
> http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/19/louisiana.same.sex.marriage.ap/index.html
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> Which leads me to a question:
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> Which states in the US allow gay marriage?
To my knowledge, none of them do. Vermont allows same-sex "civil unions"
(essentially the same thing as marriage, with all the rights and priveledges
thereof, but without the word "marriage" attached), but there was a recent news
buzz going around about how Massachusetts might become the first State to allow
same-sex marriage when they ruled a ban on it unconstitutional, using the same
"adequate reason" arguement that Hawaii and Alaska used to strike down law-based
bans on same-sex marriage (which were shortly followed by constitutional
amendments that trumped the court rulings), and which was based on a 1967
Supreme Court ruling that the State governments could not pass laws that bar
anyone from marrying without good reason (which was used to strike down many
State laws that prohibited interracial marriage). California also apparently
offers near-marriage status to same-sex couples under a recent "domestic
partnership" law (good news for SanFran), but it still falls a bit short of what
the gay community has been asking for, which is full marriage status.
Anyways, from what I can tell, the DOMA can't and doesn't prohibit States from
allowing same-sex marriage, but it defines marriage at the Federal level in
terms of man/woman couples (no joint tax returns, no protection under
marriage-specific labor laws, etc.), and allows each State to decide for itself
whether or not to recognize another State's same-sex marriages.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Louisiana bans gay marriages
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| (URL) leads me to a question: Which states in the US allow gay marriage? Thank you! Rob Hendrix PS Is this on-topic and something that is allowable to talk about here? (20 years ago, 19-Sep-04, to lugnet.people.lgbt)
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