On Gay Marriage, Moderation Could Be Disastrous

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-28/moderate-path-on-gay-marriage-could-be-disaster.html

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Messy Benefits

To understand the mess that would result if the court struck down DOMA without finding a general right to same-sex marriage, consider what would happen if the federal government recognized marriages performed in states that allow gay couples to marry while continuing to deny marital status to couples in other states.

In the first, most optimistic scenario, one or several marriage-friendly states might allow anyone from any state to get married there, creating a Las Vegas-style business in same- sex marriage. Gay couples would return to their home states with a piece of paper that should, in principle, entitle them to federal marital tax status, immigration benefits and more. But their home states would probably decline to recognize those out- of-state marriages, and deny them state-level marriage benefits.

If the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down DOMA depended on finding that states have an inherent right to define marriage in which the federal government cannot infringe, then the home states’ policy would probably be upheld. The result would be couples who are both married and unmarried for purposes of the same tax returns, mortgages and hospital visits. Each of these conflicts would be brought to the courts. State and federal courts would probably render divergent conclusions -- across all 50 states and 13 federal circuits. If this isn’t legal chaos, nothing is.

If no state wanted to attract business by becoming the same-sex-marriage hub for out-of-state residents, then the anomaly would arise when legally married gay couples moved to states that didn’t recognize their unions. Presumably they would nevertheless bring their federal benefits with them -- giving rise to the same legal issues just described. The only difference would be that litigation would build up slowly, rather than overnight. And what, pray tell, would happen if some of those couples wanted to get divorced but found themselves in legal limbo because their original states of marriage refused to administer a divorce while they lived far away? Would the federal government treat them as divorced even without a state- issued document to that effect?