The Federal Defense of Marriage Act is Unconstitutional

Hello to anyone who accepts this Note that this debate will mainly revolve around constitutionality and legal arguments, not things like religion, theories of morality, or social acceptability. I stand in affirmation of the resolution The Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) states the following: 1.) No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) needs to treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state. (1) 2.) The federal government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states. (2) The first part of this law is unconstitutional due to the 'full faith and credit' clause of the constitution, which states the following: "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State." (3) DOMA allows states to disregards the "public Acts" and "judicial Proceedings" of other states. Therefore, it violates the full faith and credit clause and is unconstitutional. The second part of DOMA is also unconstitutional. Marriage is partly a religious institution, but it is also a civil institution (4). The religious aspect is mainly for personal recognition. The government obviously cannot regulate this aspect of marriage. However, marriage is also an important civil institution. There are hundreds of benefits that arise from having the government recognize your marriage with a marriage license. Some of these involve social programs, tax codes, and insurance benefits. The second part of DOMA denies same-sex couples all the benefits of civil marriage. This is discrimination. This violates the due process clause and equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, which read: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (5) Now, I've heard the following response to the point I just made: "Well, homosexuals aren't denied equal rights. Both can get their marriage rights by marrying one person of the opposite sex. Therefore, things are equal." The above statement is false. Things are not equal between hetero and homosexuals. While it is true that marriage law applies equally to all people, the law is clearly slanted to favor one class over another. The law is clearly designed to discourage homosexual relationships, which is discriminatory to homosexuals, even if the law applies equally to all people. It may be argued that there is no de jure discrimination, but there is undoubtedly de facto discrimination. In fact, there is de jure discrimination, because DOMA explicitly outlaws gay marriage. Parallels can be drawn between this and racial segregation. Racial segregation laws applied equally to all races, but were clearly slanted to favor whites over blacks, so these laws were still discriminatory. I've also heard the argument that homosexuality is sexual perversion. I would like to point out that this doesn't really have anything to do with the constitutionality of DOMA. Even if it did, the perversion argument is negated by supreme court case "Lawrence v. Texas", which held that there is a constitutional right to sexual privacy, and that laws criminalizing sodomy between adults of the same sex are unconstitutional (6). Many people say that they are opposed to homosexual marriage, but find no problem with civil unions. While civil unions do help homosexual couples attain more rights, civil unions are not acceptable in the need for equality. Civil Unions confer the exact same rights as Marriages, but they are a different institution. This is "separate-but-equal". Separate-but-equal was the standard used to oppress Blacks and other Minorities for nearly 100 years. Landmark supreme court case "Brown v. Board of Education" declared that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." (7). The ruling relied partly on pyscological studies that showed that segregating races and reserving certain schools for certain races was highly damaging to the mental states of the Blacks being segregated. The same concept can be tied to segregating homosexuals from marriage. After all, children are raised to believe that they will one day get married live happily. Homosexuals, on the other hand, are forced to repress their early childhood beliefs and settle for a 'civil union'. Evidence of psychological damage to homosexuals can be found in the fact that they have considerably higher rates of suicide than heterosexuals (8). Therefore, we can conclude that the standards used in "Brown" apply to issues of homosexual marriage today. I would also like to point out that DOMA does not stand up to the standards of intermediate or strict scrutiny, which state that discrimination cannot be permitted unless it has a compelling government interest or important governmental interests (9). Because it does not stand up to these standards, it is unconstitutional. Finally, I would like to quote Iowa Supreme Court justice Mark Cady, in the recent ruling by the Iowa Supreme court legalizing homosexual marriage in Iowa: "We are firmly convinced that the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective," and "The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification." (10). For all the above reasons, I affirm the resolution that DOMA is unconstitutional. Thank you to whoever accepts this debate Sources: (1) http://en.wikipedia.org...... (2) " " (3)The U.S. Constitution, Article IV, section 1 (4)http://www.usconstitution.net...... (5)The U.S. Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, section 1 (6)http://en.wikipedia.org...... (7)http://en.wikipedia.org...... (8)http://www.outproud.org...... (9)http://en.wikipedia.org...... (10)http://www.desmoinesregister.com......