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Marriage is a powerful legal and social institution that protects and supports intimate family relationships by providing a unique set of rights, privileges and responsibilities.
Marriage is an important personal choice and a basic human right. The decision to marry should belong to the couple in love, not the state.
The meaning and function of marriage has developed and changed throughout history. Our sub-site, The Freedom To Marry: Rites & Rights, illustrates in depth the dramatic changes that have taken place in the U.S. in just the last few decades. But looking further back…
Our modern concepts of marriage and family are not traditional at all. In The Bible, the married couple Abraham and Sarah were half-siblings, sharing a father. And Jewish law required childless husbands to marry again (with or without divorcing the first wife). In the Roman Empire , only the very upper tier of society had the legal right to marry; everyone else lived together outside the law. For its first thousand years or so, the early Christian church considered marriage a tainted, earthly institution, and didn't declare marriage a sacrament until 1215. In English and American law, women did not have the legal right to be their children's guardians – their legal mother – until the 19th century. And while states were battling for nearly 150 years over whether to recognize each others' divorces, Protestant denominations were roiled by the question of whether it was sinful to re-marry divorced people whose ex-spouses were still alive. As recently as 1967, it was even traditional in many states for legal marriage to exclude interracial couples.
Marriage has always been a social construct whose rules shifted to suit each economy, each era, each class. These changes did not make marriage weaker, they made it stronger.
(with thanks to E.J. Graff, author, What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution )
Tradition is grand, but we have to ask, whose traditions? And what decade? And what if those traditions are a source of discrimination?
"Traditional" definitions of marriage are not sound reasons for a law that discriminates against lesbians and gay men – just as we no longer ban marriage between people of different races or define wives as the property of their husbands.
But even if we decide to ignore all the other traditions of marriage that there have been in our culture and focus only on the one-man-one-woman tradition, we're left with the question, “Is holding fast to a particular tradition good when doing so hurts people?” And a follow-up question, “What harm would be done to the marriages of opposite-sex couples if same-sex couples are allowed to marry?”
Religious marriage and civil marriage are distinct institutions. Many same-sex couples are religious. Their faith and their congregations recognize their commitment and consider them married. Such couples and such faiths wholeheartedly agree that religious marriage is indeed sacred.
Yet while many faiths do perform same-sex commitment ceremonies, and they may even be called marriages, those ceremonies are not legally recognized as civil marriage. (Exceptions are the state of Massachusetts and the countries of Canada , Spain , Belgium , and The Netherlands, where same-sex couples are allowed to legally marry.)
From the perspective of the law, what's important in determining who can marry is not the religious sanctity of marriage. What's important is whether allowing a particular couple to marry would have harmful consequences – such as leading to in-breeding or to the exploitation of a child. Our laws have held that, in the absence of harm, the freedom to marry belongs to the couple – not to the government.
The government does not control which marriages any religion can perform or recognize, just as religions, in our country at least, do not dictate who can get a civil marriage license from the government. But it does violate the faith of religious same-sex couples to say that others' religious beliefs can keep them from legally marrying.
The important point to keep in mind is that religious practices and religious freedom are not threatened by legal recognition of marriage. Just as with other laws, religions that do not approve of marriage for same-sex couples could continue to refuse to perform them – even if such marriages are recognized by our government.
We believe it is moral to allow committed couples to share in the responsibilities and protections their families need. Marriage promotes healthier and happier lives for couples and families and fulfills an important role in supporting and stabilizing the communities around us.
Committed lesbian and gay relationships are a reality. Many of us also raise children, perhaps from a former marriage or from adopting a child who would otherwise live in an orphanage. Our families need protection just as much as those headed by opposite-sex couples. Marriage brings not only legal rights, it also sets up responsibilities for the spouses to each other, and to the larger society.
Without a written directive, doctors generally defer to a patient's spouse regarding medical treatment, and the spouse is allowed to visit a patient in preference to all others. There are many rights for the spouse as automatic next of kin, including priority in making medical decisions in case of illness or disability of their spouse.
A child who grows up with married parents benefits from the fact that his or her parents' relationship is recognized by law and receives protection of the law. In addition, spouses are generally entitled to have joint child custody and visitation upon divorce (and bear an obligation to pay child support).
The right to take sick leave to care for a spouse or child is an employer-provided benefit from which same-sex couples are excluded along with a host of other employer-provided benefits like bereavement leave (paid or unpaid), access to health insurance, and pension protections.
A married couple has the right to be treated as an economic unit and to file joint tax returns, (in the process potentially exposing themselves to the so-called “marriage penalty”) and obtain joint health, home and auto insurance policies.
Married couples are entitled to many income and estate tax benefits, such as joint filing of income taxes, the ability to inherit property from one's spouse free from certain estate taxes, and the ability to transfer property between spouses without gift tax or transfer tax.
The law provides certain automatic rights to a person's spouse regardless of whether a will exists.
Each state has laws for dealing with the dissolution of a marriage which also require a determination of property distribution, and an award of child custody and support and spousal support. Without legal marriage, there is no uniform system for sorting out the ending of a relationship.
Many married people are entitled to financial benefits relating to their spouses, such as disability and Social Security benefits.
Foreign nationals married to American citizens are entitled to preferential treatment with regard to immigration and residency.
The spouse of a deceased person is generally entitled to determine the disposition of their loved one's body and to make funeral arrangements.
Once two people legally marry, they cannot undo their marriage without first obtaining the permission of the state – what we call divorce. The commitment to remain married, and the stability and continuity that provides for families and society, is why civil society provides married couples with extensive legal, social and economic protections.
In some cases, a person who would otherwise be eligible for Medicaid or a student loan may be ineligible because his or her spouse's income is counted as part of his or her own income. . (Federal taxpayers will receive a “fairness bonus” when same-sex couples are able to marry and the federal Defense of Marriage Act is repealed: the additional financial responsibilities taken on by same-sex couples will reduce the burden on all taxpayers by 400 to 700 million dollars annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office.)
In some states, partners are responsible for the necessary debts of their spouses, including medical bills.
Often, courts require partners to help support their ex-spouses even after the marriage breaks up.
In many situations, the spouse of a mother who gives birth is automatically responsible for child support.
Absolutely. Same-sex couples want to marry for all the wonderful – and sometimes zany – reasons that opposite-sex couples want to marry. Acceptance by their society, their friends, and their family; love; and raising children are some of the biggies. The next time you hear of an opposite-sex couple getting married, ask them, “Why do you want to get married?” They'll give you some wonderful reasons – perhaps after they look at you funny. Those are the same reasons why any same-sex couple would want to marry.
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