Opinion ID: 2011334
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Anti-Sex Discriminatory Language Act of 1976

Text: Appellants do not rest on their own interpretation of the marriage statute. They argue that the Council itself, through two separate pieces of legislation, has indirectly confirmed (or reinterpreted) the statutory definition of marriage in ways that guarantee the right to same-sex marriages. The first interpretive legislation was the Anti-Sex Discriminatory Language Act of 1976. See 1976 D.C.Stat. 194. [14] This Act, which among other things amended the 1901 marriage statute, sought to achieve equality under the law for men and women by eliminating sex-based distinctions in the District of Columbia Code, so that the rights and responsibilities of persons under D.C. law will not be different solely on the basis of their sex. COMM. ON THE JUDICIARY AND CRIM.LAW, REPORT ON BILL No. 1-36, THE ANTI-SEX DISCRIMINATORY LANGUAGE ACT, at 2-3 (May 20, 1976) (hereafter COMM. REPORT ON BILL 1-36). The Anti-Sex Discriminatory Language Act made only one change in the marriage statute: Sec. 32. Section 1292 of the Act of March 3, 1901 (D.C.Code, sec. 30-111), is amended by striking out unless the father of such persons, or if there be no father, the mother, and inserting in lieu thereof unless a parent.[ [15] ] 1976 D.C.Stat. 201. Because Councilmember Dixon's Bill 1-89 recognizing same-sex marriages was pending at the time the Council was discussing Bill 1-36 to establish the Anti-Sex Discriminatory Language Act, the Committee on the Judiciary and Criminal Law clarified the relationship between the two bills: It is true that Bill 1-36 makes substantive changes in the domestic relations law. However, every such change is designed to achieve only one result, i.e., to make the law equal in effect for males and females.... Comprehensive revision of the divorce and marriage laws is contemplated in another Council bill, Bill No. 1-89, the District of Columbia Uniform Marriage and Divorce act. That bill would make major revisions to local domestic relations law and would do so in a non-sex-discriminatory manner.... [T]he Council should promptly enact Bill 1-36 which would do only one thingenact the principle of sex equality into the D.C.Code including the domestic relations law. Thereafter, the Council may proceed to consider a more comprehensive revision of the domestic relations law.... COMM. REPORT ON BILL 1-36, at 5-6. This comment clarifies that the Anti-Sex Discriminatory Language Act served a limited purpose: to make the law equal in effect for men and women vis-a-vis each other; for example, it gave mothers a right equal to that of fathers to consent to marriage by a child under 18. See supra note 15. There was not a hint that the legislation was intended to give one class of males, e.g., gay men, an equality with another class of males, e.g., heterosexual men. Thus, the 1976 Act did not revise the substance of the marriage statute to redefine the term marriage.