Well, it is an open legal question if that is allowed under the US Constitution.
The “full faith and credit” requires states to recognize the legal actions of other states. And this is used in other marriage cases. The minimum age for marriage in West Virginia is younger than here in Minnesota, but if a teen-age couple marries in WV and moves here, their marriage is recognized. Even foreign polygamous marriages are treated as married here; that’s pretty common down at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
Eventually, this will end up in front of the US Supreme Court to decide. Gay people would prefer to wait, since the current Court would likely give a Roger Taney-like decision (“negroes have no rights”).
There is a word in the English language for the contracting of a monogamous relationship between two people who agree to live together as spouses for the rest of their lives. That word is “marriage.”
If it’s performed by a Mayor, JP or whatever, it’s a “civil marriage” – if by a clergyperson, it’s a “church marriage.” And that’s only relevant to the wedding at which the marriage is created.
Note: the following is an attempt to explain a viewpoint not shared by the author, for clarification purposes: For many conservative people, particularly of a religious nature, however, the idea of a “gay marriage” is despicable. First, not having known a loving, committed gay couple, they do not conceive of such a relationship when they hear the term, but focus on the sexual aspect. Secondly, for the religious types, there’s a sense that God created and ordained marriage, and that He did so for a specific combination: one man and one woman. To call gay monogamous relationships “marriages” is for them blasphemy of a divinely sanctified institution.
Now, to carry a religious concept over into civil law is obviously totally unjustified. But we are talking here of people’s emotional reactions – and ones founded in their religious beliefs. This is a big hurdle for most of them.
So, is there any requirement that the couple being “civil unioned” actually consummate the union? The reason I ask is that in Canada, a couple of divorced guys were bitching that they no longer got the tax breaks for being married, then realized that Canada’s gay marriage law had no requirement for them to consummate the thing, and decided to get hitched as a tax dodge. I’m thinking one way to get a real gay marriage law enacted is for us straights to “civil union” one another for the tax benefits.
I don’t believe there is any such legal requirement, for either civil unions or marriages.
I have friends where the husband is disabled and in a wheelchair, and physically not capable of ‘consummating’ the marriage in the usual way. But they had no problem getting a marriage license, nor in having their marriage recognized by the state & federal government in the years since then.
Technically, I think Catholic Canon law requires that people getting married be able to physically consummate the marriage. But this is regularly ignored by everyone in the church.
Non-consumation is only grounds for nullity of marriage if one spouse petions the court for an annulment. No third party can. In no state is it illegal for a man and a women to enter into a platonic marriage simply for the tax breaks and health insurance (immigration is another story).
Unfortunately, from your link, it looks like you are correct. This is a shame and it is more then just semantics. Still, it is a good step forward and hopefully one that leads to the next step quicker than it took to get to this one.
Jim {That was a convoluted way to say I am wrong and you are right, wasn’t it?}
