The Federal Defense of Marriage Act is Unconstitutional

It has certainly been worth the time. I am glad to see that my opponent and I have reached a mutual understanding of full faith and credit. He has agreed that Congress's power to regulate full faith and credit in this situtation is dependent upon whether their doing so involves the violation of another constitutional clause. By proving that DOMA violates equal protection, I will, in turn, also prove that it violates full faith and credit. My opponent claims that DOMA does not violate equal protection because it does not explicitly prevent or outlaw the federal government or the states from granting the benefits that accompany marriage to other forms of marital unions. To strengthen his case, he provides a hypothetical scenario "in which Congress immediately adds the same 1,138 protections to a second institution called civil union. " My opponent believes that since such a scenario has the potential to exist, DOMA is not unconstitutional. This argument, while highly interesting, fails on multiple levels. Firstly, my opponent's argument fails from the realistic standpoint. It is not simply enough to analyze whether the wording of a law is unconstitutional, it is also necessary to analyze the real standards of society upon which a law is being applied. Perhaps it is possible that congress creates the institution of civil union and proceeds to give it over 1,000 rights given to marriages, but it is certainly not probable, likely, or even feasible. It is safe to assume that congress has no intention of creating civil unions in the near or long term future, and that it had no such intentions when it created DOMA. The only way to make DOMA constitutional would be to force congress to create the hypothetical situtation created by my opponent. Given the impracticality and near impossibility of forcing congress to do so, it is much more logical not to try and make DOMA constitutional and simply strike it down. For an example of a law that may have seemed constitutional on paper but was obviously not constitutional in practice, one can look to the poll tax. Prior to the passage of the twenty-fourth amendment, the poll tax was constitutional, as upheld in case "Breedlove v. Suttles" (1). The poll tax did not seems to explicitly ban any person from voting. However, in practice, the poll tax was clearly designed to discriminate against minorities. This was ended by the supreme court case "Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections" (on the grounds of equal protection) and the twenty-fourth amendment (2,3). However, even if we choose to accept my opponent's point (for the sake of argument), it still violates equal protection. My opponent asserts that marriage is merely a construct, a definition. He also stresses the point that not all laws can always treat all people equally. Both of these are true. However, the pertinent question regarding unequal treatment is whether such discriminations and distinctions serve some form of compelling state interest. If we are to construct an institution known as 'marriage', and then we are to reserve it for heterosexual couples, we must find a compelling interest with which to back this reservation of rights. The fact of the matter is that there is no suffieciently compelling interest to stand up to scrutiny or rational review. Therefore, creating a distinction between two nearly identical institutions creates a distinction solely for the purpose of discriminating. In round one, my opponent attempted to offer 'the will of the states' as a compelling state interest. This is not a compelling interest. If my opponent should bring it up again, please look to round two for my rebuttal, which I have already written and my opponent has not acknowledged. The only other argument for compelling interest that I have heard before is that marriage is solely for the purpose of procreation. This argument is illogical. If it was true, it ought not to be legal for infertile people or people who do not desire kids to get married. Moreover, allowing homosexuals to enter the institution of marriage does not hamper or retard the interests of hetersexual procreation. In fact, it increases the ability of homosexuals to adopt and raise kids of their own, which helps raise the next generation of citizens, the primary purpose of procreation. In the event that my opponent brings up this argument (he has not), I have already rebutted it. My opponent may also attempt to bring up the point that marriage is defined as between a man and a woman, and since marriage is a construct, there is not any discrimination there. I have already touched on this above, but just to emphasize another point, I would like to quote Massachussets Supreme Court Justice Greany "[t]o define the institution of marriage by the characteristics of those to whom it always has been accessible, in order to justify the exclusion of those to whom it never has been accessible, is conclusory and bypasses the core question we are asked to decide. " (4). Essentially, considering homosexual marriage by how it has always been defined is circular and redundant. Also, my opponent has been kind enough to provide a definition of marriage that is agnostic to sexual orientation, so I doubt that he will bring this point up. I would like to thank my opponent once more for accepting this debate. He has put up excellent points, and to be honest, I'm afraid he'll bring up some devastating new point in his final rebuttal, but I won't have time to refute it because he has the last word. Oh well, such is life. I would also like to thank my opponent for his exceptional civilty and conduct. The world would be a much nicer place if everyone was as well-mannered as my opponent. I apologize to my opponent if he is annoyed by my attempts to anticipate his final rebuttal. He may not make the points that I think that he will make at all, but I felt compelled to try and anticipate his points anyway. After all, this is my last chance to make a point. On a personal note, I have always been irked by not having the last say in things. In conclusion, I have demonstrated that DOMA stands in violation of equal rights, and does not stand up to sufficient scrutiny to uphold such violations. It is therefore unconstituional, and it is necessary to vote PRO. Thank you Sources: (1). http://supreme.justia.com... (2). http://en.wikipedia.org... (3). http://en.wikipedia.org... (4). http://www.buddybuddy.com...