I can’t seem to find any definite answers by Googling on this, so here goes.
If a couple gets married in Massachusetts, they get federal married benefits. Understood. But if that couple moves to Texas (for whatever godforsaken reason), do their federal benefits follow them or are they now not-married in federal eyes?
How about military couples? If a gay couple where one is a soldier stationed at Fort Meade (MD) get married, they get federal married benefits. What if the soldier is then transferred to Fort Hood? Is this a different scenario than the civilian couple because it’s military?
As I understand it, the process for federal law will be to ask if the couple is legally married. As I understand that inquiry, it’s resolved if the couple originally married under the laws of a state, and does not care where the coupe resides at present.
I am not sure that’s correct. It appears to be central to SCOTUS’s holding and to the opinion of the trial court that New York recognized Windsor’s marriage, because the case ultimately came down to a sovereignty issue. It was NYS’ authority to define marriage that was being undermined. Windsor actually got married in Ontario, and the Constitution has nothing to say about the authority of foreign governments to regulate marriage.
On the other hand, the SCOTUS opinion also makes it clear that the ruling is based in part on equal protection grounds.
On the third hand, Windsor’s challenge was grounded in an argument that the DOMA section was unconstitutional as applied, not that it was unconstitutional per se.
I am not a lawyer, but my take is, since the employment transfer is "mandatatory’, so go the rights decided under the decision.
This is different form a “voluntary” transfer. The law often protects soldiers more than civilians, such as the Soldiers and Sailors refief act, (or whatever it is termed now).
If the beneits did not follow, that would give the soldier a “federal” element to sue in federal court.
It will be up to the Executive branch to determine if a gay couple legally married in one state but currently residing in a state that disallows gay marriage is deemed ‘married’ in the eyes of the Federal Government.
We can presume that the Obama administration will do so. And when that happens, it’s hard to imagine someone or a state that can sue the Administration over that decision because they’d have to prove that that decision harms them and thus they have standing to sue. The House will probably try to pass a law to force the Federal Government to not recognize a gay marriage if the couple moves to a state disallowing gay marriage, but that won’t pass the Senate or the President.
We can presume that a future Republican administration would be more likely than not to reverse the Obama Administration decision to recognize gay marriage from an allowing state who are in a disallowing state. This is because while there have been many high-profile Republicans who have been in support of gay marriage, they are rarely the currently elected kind. Republican primaries tend to favor the anti-gay-marriage candidates.
From what I read - the Feds cannot negate what a state says about the couple’s marital status. So as Bricker says - as long as they were legally married by a state which allows that.
The interesting, and so far unresolved question - until gay marriage came along, states by some convention recognized each others’ marriage and divorces among other legal actions. One of these days, that issue may or may not hit SCOTUS - is one state obliged to recognize another’s marriages?
SCOTUS seems to have agreed to disagree by avoiding profound pronouncements on critical social issues. ISTM they are letting general public sentiment lead teh way rather than leading - which seems to be the best compromise between pro- and anti-activist sides. (Note in the Obamacare decsion, they did exactly the same thing - “you guys sort out the laws, don’t expect the court to do your job”. ) The feeling is that social sentiment is going to decide this, and the lawmakers will eventually catch up; the court does not have to lead. Meanwhile, they do the fancy dance to avoid enshrining either side of the issue in precedent.
Perhaps you haven’t been watching the news. SCOTUS just made it pretty clear that citizens have standing to sue for federal recognition of their marriages.
Doesn’t the full faith and credit clause of the constitution mandate that each state honor each other state’s validly recognized marriage? Isn’t the Federal government compelled to treat them as married, regardless of where they reside, if their initial marriage was deemed valid by the state that initially sanctioned it?
On the ‘states recognizing other states’ marriages’ thing: Another section of DOMA (which the Court did not overturn, at least just yet) specifically exempts states from recognizing SSM granted by another state if they themselves don’t grant it. So Texas can, at the state level, keep pretending that the marriage someone got in Vermont doesn’t exist. Federal benefits are going to vary by agency - some of them base those benefits on where the couple resides, others on where they were married.
[QUOTE=The New York Times]
If you […] live in and get married in a state that allows same-sex marriage, but later move to a state with a ban: Federal benefits will vary by agency. The I.R.S. and Social Security Administration, for example, look at where the couple live, not where they were married. Department of Defense benefits and immigration law consider where the couple were married, regardless of where they live.
[/QUOTE]
I’ll give you an example: Under the US tax code, a married couple whose members have roughly equal income often ends up paying more in taxes than they would have if they could each have filed as single individuals.
I envision a situation where a couple who got married in New York and moved to Texas and then filed as unmarried to save on taxes would be hit with a tax deficiency because they didn’t file as married. Then they would be in the ironic position of claiming that their marriage was no longer valid.
This is something I haven’t heard anyone talking about. They talk about all the benefits of marriage (and there certainly are many), but what about the burdens like taxes? Some couples pay more federal income tax because they are married, some pay less. Are we going to have a mess with the IRS going back to all open years and trying to assess taxes against those who would have paid more if they had been legally married?
The question, though, is which state? One or the other is going to be negated.
No; there’s a widespread misconception that FFC applies to marriages, but it never has. FFC basically applies to judgments from legal cases. In the past, states have declined to recognize each other’s marriages in cases of differences as to age or consanguinity.
I don’t think so. I think the DOMA decision would permit the federal government (if it chooses) to establish that federal marital benefits depend on whether a couple is considered married by the state in which they reside. I may be wrong.
“Married filing separately” is different than filing “single.” The rates, rules, and regulations are completely different. Except in very special circumstances, “married filing separately” is generally the very worst option and there are a lot of disincentives built into the tax code to discourage it. For example, with some exceptions, if you are married filing separately, you cannot claim EITC, you cannot make a Roth IRA contribution if your income is over $10,000, you cannot claim the standard deduction if your spouse itemizes, and a whole list of other restrictions.
If you are married as of the last day of the tax year, your only federal options are married filing jointly, married filing separately, or head of household if you didn’t live with your spouse for a certain time period and otherwise qualified as a head of household. You cannot file as single. State income tax rules may vary.
Occasionally some quirk does arise that makes “married filing separately” cheaper. A lot of couples in Ohio do it because the state requires them to use the same status for their state and federal tax returns. It turns out that there is some provision in the Ohio income tax that lets some couples filing separately claim a double credit on their state tax returns that more than offsets the penalty they will pay on their federal returns.
Barring any such situation, the only other reason to file separately is to avoid joint responsibility if your spouse is doing something legally questionable or if the couple hates each other so much that they are unwilling to cooperate in filing a joint return.
I can’t see it applying retroactively. But married gay couples now will be subject to the marriage penalty going forward if the circumstances so warrant.
I disagree, and I think most scholarly opinion does as well. Here are a couple of overviews that admittedly lack citations; I don’t have anything more authoritative right at hand.
If the S.Ct in the near future mandates SSM nationwide, I suspect it will do so via equal protection, and not FFC.
All these are grounds for future cases. Given the speed of the justice system, it may be years before SCOTUS has to face the issue again. Meanwhile, they can let public opinion gel, and state courts set more precedents - so when they do rule, like this ruling, they are not so blatantly an “activist” court… exactly what Roberts wants, I assume. This opens the floodgates - five years from now I assume most states will have FFC adjudicated to death.
(I was very impressed the Solomon-like cleverness of his ACA decision - “don’t look to court activism to sort out what the legislatures should sort out. We won’t do your dirty work just because you can’t round up the votes.” This looks to be the same thing. The concept will be set in Supreme stone when public opinion and legislation is ready for it.)
If I was a betting man, my money would be on the IRS allowing retroactive amendments at the taxpayer’s option and requiring compliance going forward. This is essentially the policy they followed when they reinterpreted community property laws and RDP status for same-sex couples in WA, NV and CA.
But the answer right now is that we don’t know what the IRS will do.