I have an Alabama driver's license, but originally I'm from Wisconsin. To drive back to my parents' house, I have to pass through Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. I'm licensed to drive in each of those states because I'm licensed to drive in Alabama. And while the driver's test in Alabama may be markedly different than the one in Wisconsin, my license in Alabama works in Wisconsin. This is because of Article IV of the United States Constitution, which states that "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State."
A marriage license is no different than a driver's license. Both are issued by the state and serve purely state purposes. A marriage license issued by the state does not require the Catholic Church to marry you. If you aren't Catholic or the diocese deems your relationship unfit, the Catholic Church is not legally obligated to perform your marriage. But in the eyes of the law, you are happily married. Furthermore, if I get married in Iowa, but my wife and I decide Alabama is the better place for us, our marriage from Iowa is still legal and recognized by the state of Alabama, and we are entitled to all the benefits under Alabama law that a couple originally married in Alabama would be. The Constitution requires it.
That is, of course, unless I don't marry my wife in Iowa and instead I marry my husband. Equal marriage is legal in Iowa, but not in Alabama and, see, that changes the whole story. If my husband and I move to Alabama, we're no longer legally married. We're partners, lovers, boyfriends, companions. Anything and everything but husbands. The Defense of Marriage Act supersedes the Constitution and says if Alabama thinks equal marriage is icky, then Alabama doesn't have to recognize that legally binding license from another state, even though Article IV says otherwise.
I dated a woman once who had married young and regretted it. She divorced less than a year after getting married. But for a very brief moment, she was a wife and she had a husband. Those are two very special, meaningful words, especially to people who can't use them. All this woman and her soon-to-be-ex-husband had to do to be granted with such a privilege was show up at the court house with one boy part, one girl part, two birth certificates and $80. The divorce was a bit more expensive.
But that brief marriage, however hollow and meaningless as it may have been, was constitutionally valid in every single state in the Union. However, two women who were wed on May 17, 2004 (the first day equal marriage was legal in Massachusetts), would be forcefully separated by Alabama the minute they moved to our lovely village on the Plains, despite being married for seven years.
Your recent article about two open homosexuals in Auburn reminded me of my driver's license and the Defense of Marriage Act. Constitutionally, the Defense of Marriage Act is invalid. Morally, the Defense of Marriage Act is inexcusable. I think it is time to repeal DOMA.
Alexander Roberson
president emeritus, College Democrats
senior, history
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