The Institute for Marriage and Public Policy has issued this six page research brief by Joshua Baker. The Executive Summary:
On May 15, 2008 the California Supreme Court overruled Proposition 22 which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. California thus joins Massachusetts as the only other court to hold that marriage constitutes discrimination in the U.S. In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled invalid Massachusetts common law rules recognizing marriage only as the union of husband and wife. The Goodridge decision, finding no rational relation between marriage and procreation remains a notable minority in American law. (Goodridge v. Dept. of Publ. Health, 798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003).)
Over the past ten years, at least nine other state and federal courts (excluding cases still pending on appeal) have ruled that marriage laws are not discriminatory, but have a rational basis in “responsible procreation.” In other words, unions of husband and wife are sufficiently different from same-sex unions that it is not discriminatory to treat these types of unions differently. Recent decisions rejecting a constitutional right to gay marriage include Maryland, New York, and Washington, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Even in Vermont and New Jersey, where the courts mandated equal benefits for same-sex couples, the courts rejected the notion that the marriage laws constituted sex discrimination.
This research brief provides excerpts from all final state and federal court rulings since 1998 to have ruled on the question of whether marriage as the union of husband and wife is discriminatory.
