Same-sex marriages: Census issue

Thank you, Mike Quigley!

And Obama? Prove that you're not all talk and fulfill the campaign promises you made!

Mike Quigley is all talk since he knows this can't be done because the census questionaries are being printed now! What a moron!!!!!

The coveted black vote will not allow this.

how could you include something on the Census that is not recognized by the Fed gov? Leave it to Obama & Co.
Quigley= Crackpot

This is a matter of states' rights. Shouldn't the GOP support this? And shouldn't they support overturning the DOMA as it is a violation of states' rights?

Nice gesture - but how about making same-sex marriages/civil unions/whatever you want to call them available in all 50 states?!

Finally! Someone who sits in congress says the right thing. Why census takers would knowingly falsify data (by changing lawfully married couples to unmarried) is beyond me.

Quigley another do nothing Rep. ! He knows it's to late to include this, and all you fools that believe he wants this are just that FOOLS !

One more thing to make president Obama a 1 term president and also hopefully Quigley!!!!!

why not let the churches sanction marriages and the states sanction civile unions? However, civil unions FOR ALL will be recognized by the state and government. That way the churches get to keep thieir marriages (which fail by over 50%) and all couples get the same rights under the states and Federal gov.

Why not just have them mark married? Why does there have to be a separate entry for same-sex married? That seems on par with having a separate entry for inter-racial married.

“This is a matter of states' rights. Shouldn't the GOP support this? And shouldn't they support overturning the DOMA as it is a violation of states' rights?”
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Posted by: Patrick | June 16, 2009 12:30 PM
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Love it or hate it, DOMA is not a violation of States’ rights. To the contrary, it preserves each state’s discretion to decide whether to recognize same-sex relationships as marriages even where the relationships are sanctioned as marriages by other states. See 28 U.S.C. § 1738C. You can read it online at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/28/1738C.html With regard to same-sex marriage, the law purports to exempt all the States from the requirement of the “full faith and credit clause” of Article VI, Section 1 of the Constitution 4 to respect the “public acts, records, and judicial proceedings” of other states. In other words, the law arguably gives States more rights with regard to the laws and acts of other states than it would have had without DOMA. That, however, is debatable.

Way to Go Quigley!!! It's important that the Chicago LGBT community has another STRONG ally in Congress to voice our concerns.

Why not just have them mark married? Why does there have to be a separate entry for same-sex married? That seems on par with having a separate entry for inter-racial married.

Posted by: Nathaniel | June 16, 2009 1:38 PM
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"Inter-racial married" is recognized as legally married and has been in every state for over 40 years (Loving v. VA, 1967). "Same sex married" is not recognized as a legal marriage. It's NOT on a par. When no state in the country refuses to recognize same-sex marriage as perfectly legal and valid and when it's upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States that it's illegal not to recognize same-sex marriage, THEN it will be on a par with inter-racial marriage.

rjinchi said: That way the churches get to keep thieir marriages (which fail by over 50%) and all couples get the same rights under the states and Federal gov.

Wrong again. According to in depth research of government stats, 70% of first time marriages are successful. It's roughly 60% 0f the other 30% that are in and out of marriage so often the figures are distorted.

I knew he was a big lefty.

He is collecting big lobbyist money now.

If they ask just

one gay question

there will be a

mass boycott

on giving out any info

about anything.

Marriage is, by design and definition, between a man and a woman. Thus, anything that Same-Sex attracted people do that pretends to look like marriage, is just that: make believe.
Rep. Quigley and everyone else in the Same-Sex attracted community can only hope for a hollow facade of the real thing. Therefore, to include make believe in the census seems a bit childish. Sadly, this is common for the Same-Sex attracted community.

I knew he was a big lefty.

Posted by: J C

I hope he's a lefty. It would be nice to have a liberal or two in DC.

Who cares what Quigley wants.. I won't be filling out anything more than how many live in my household..Let them come for me.. the other questions that I hear are suppose to be on the Census are
What kind of fuel do you use to heat your home
Do you have a toilet that flushes
What time do you leave the house in the morning they want the exact hour, and minute..
What that has to do with a head count for calculating Representatives I have no idea but it's an invasion of my privacy..

DOMA is unconstitutional. Here's why: The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

This means that any powers not specifically spelled out as federal powers in the Constitution are reserved for the states and/or the people.

Since marriage is not specifically stated as an area of federal authority in the Constitution, that means it is reserved for the states/people. Which means the Federal government cannot pass laws regulating it, such as DOMA.

Therefore, same-sex married couples need to be counted as legally married, since in the states where they were married it's legal. Add to that couples who were married overseas in countries where it's legal and live in a state that recognizes such marriages, even if they are not legal to perform there.

Next thing in this country we are going to allow owners to marry their pets. I have never heard of a hetero-relationship between a male and male or female and female. But I suppose that too could change. All of this for what - insurance, inheritance, rights and the like? If same sex marriages are to be recognized, then so should polygamy!

Wrong again. According to in depth research of government stats, 70% of first time marriages are successful. It's roughly 60% 0f the other 30% that are in and out of marriage so often the figures are distorted.

Hey McGrats, how about citing those figures? Bet they come from some right wing religious blog, and I bet you are also right wing and religious. This negates your comment right there in my view because you are too biased to give a thoughtful response to the question. "in depth research of government stats" ... by whom? paid for by whom? If you think you can prove your point, post a link to where these so-called statistics come from.

Hey, Rep. Mike Quigley, why don't you ask the people who you are suppose to be representing in your district what they think of your wonky views here first? I mean, that is what you were sent to Washington to do in the first place, right?

Mike Quigley is quite right to push this. Those who claim he's too late are wrong. it's not a matter of printing the questionnaires. It's a matter of how to count them and whether to distort the responses.

Since they haven't even been sent out or answered yet, there's plenty of time to adopt a proper counting method that doesn't lie about people's legally married status.

This would be the easiest reform of all the Bush anti-gay policies for the Obama administration to make, and if the administration is smart it will do so.

Next thing in this country we are going to allow owners to marry their pets. I have never heard of a hetero-relationship between a male and male or female and female. But I suppose that too could change. All of this for what - insurance, inheritance, rights and the like? If same sex marriages are to be recognized, then so should polygamy!

Posted by: MikeF | June 16, 2009 7:05 PM

Are you mentally challenged or what?

The truth of the matter is you people are afraid to find out just how many gay people there really are in America!
Gay people pay taxes just like everyone else! They deserve to be counted in a relationship or not period!

And one more thing MIke F, people who love each other have free will to chose and make decisions. Unlike your dream of marrying your dumb dog who wouldnt have the choice.
Your old argument is just that Old and bigoted and quite frankly a discusting comparison!

Representative Quigley is doing the right thing by pushing this issue. With the number of states that now recognize lawful same-sex marriages, the census must count those marriages. Twenty years from now people will look back and just shake their heads in disbelief that this was even an issue.

Thanks, Mike, and thanks for sponsoring the Cook County Domestic Partnership Ordinance even before same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts.

The 'Under The Bus Tour' leaves in 10 minutes. Make sure you all have a ticket. The GLBT community should be use to the view from UNDER the BUS. Cliinton did it. It's time for the MONEY to STOP and the SHOUTING TO BEGIN

Next thing in this country we are going to allow owners to marry their pets. I have never heard of a hetero-relationship between a male and male or female and female. But I suppose that too could change. All of this for what - insurance, inheritance, rights and the like? If same sex marriages are to be recognized, then so should polygamy!

Posted by: MikeF | June 16, 2009 7:05 PM

Apply your own logic on this, MikeF, to another issue. If citizens are allowed to own guns, before we know it, they'll demand the right to their own atomic and biological weapons! We MUST nip this in the bud (because there's obviously no option for us to allow guns but draw the line somewhere before missiles and nuclear bombs) and confiscate any and all weapons, including pea-shooters and slingshots, owned by an individual!! Our safety -- our very SURVIVAL -- demands it! It's a slippery slope out there, and we just can't leave this up to chance, can we?
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Make sense to you? Thought not. (Or maybe it DOES -- an even scarier thought!)

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Posted by: x-wizard | June 16, 2009 7:04 PM
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Your 10th Amendment argument would be valid if DOMA purported to regulate marriages. But it doesn’t. It only purports to say whether States, other than one in which same-sex marriage is authorized, must recognize and/or respect such marriages. The power to enact such legislation is derived from Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to prescribe the effect of the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of one state in another state. This is precisely the basis upon which Congress purported to act in passing the DOMA.
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Furthermore, DOMA is fully in accord with case law dealing with “full faith and credit” to be accorded the acts and records of one state in another. “[T]he full faith and credit clause does not require one state to substitute for its own statute, applicable to persons and events within it, the conflicting statute of another state, even though that statute is of controlling force in the courts of the state of its enactment with respect to the same persons and events.” (Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission 306 U.S. 493, 502 (1939).) One of the purposes of this exception is to prevent one state from denigrating the sovereignty of others by forcing its public policy choices on the other states, and especially when to do so would contravene the latter’s explicit statutory or constitutional law. (See Id., at pp. 501-502; and Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt et al. 538 U.S. 488, 498-499 (2003).)
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For example, to force California to accept the validity of a same-sex marriage recognized in Massachusetts or Iowa would exalt the laws of either state over California’s. It would strip California of its power to regulate marriage the way the people of the State saw fit, and do so contrary to California’s explicit public policy. It would lead to the absurd result that only same-sex marriages performed in California would be deemed invalid, while those performed in every other state would have to be recognized as valid. This is exactly the kind of denigration of state sovereignty the public policy exception was designed to prevent. The DOMA merely embodies this public policy exception with regard to same-sex marriages. Hence, it is a valid manner of prescribing the “effect” of one state’s laws in another state. It is, therefore, not unconstitutional on the grounds you claim.

John W, by your logic then, any state can declare that any marriages from any other state are non-binding for any reason, including traditional marriages, correct? Or is it only homosexuals who aren't covered by the full faith and credtit clause, let alone the equal protection clasue?

It's not a states rights issue, it's a human rights issue. It's not up to the state to determine if consenting adults marry, it's up to the consenting adults. (Not animals or children, don't be idiots.) At least half of the protected church sanctioned marriages fail. What does that say about holy matrimony? Please tell me why tax paying, law abiding, contributing citizens are banned by the state from marriage? Who the h@ll is the state to tell CITIZENS they can't marry, in this so called land of the free and home of the brave? Consenting, law abiding adult citizens can and should marry, period. Time to get religion out of the picture.

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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."

Can someone pelease tell me where the equal protection clause says that it doesn't apply to same sex couples?

Recognizing heterosexual marriages of other states, while not recognizing same sex marriages from other states clearly does not give the same sex couple the same protections under the law that the hetrosexual couple has.

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Posted by: Nel | June 17, 2009 3:53 PM
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Let’s start off with some basics, Nel. It’s not my logic. It is the logic of the courts in their interpretation of the Constitution.
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In the second place, it is up to each state to determine whether to recognize the form of marriage of another state. In which case, what you have suggested is true: no state is required to recognize any marriage other than the kind they sanction themselves. If, for instance, a state sanctioned same-sex marriages, it would raise serious equal protection and “privileges and immunities” issues if it discriminated against same-sex marriages from out of state.
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In the third place, no federal court has ever held that the gay or lesbian couples are deprived of their right to equal protection of the laws by state laws that define marriage exclusively as the union of a man and a woman. All cases that have held such laws to violate equal protection have been decisions of State courts interpreting their own state constitutions. Those state courts knew the federal constitution does not support their holdings. That’s why those decisions could be overturned by amending their State constitutions - as was done in California and Hawaii. This is why it is still an issue of “state sovereignty” when one State defines marriage in a way that is at variance with the laws of another State.
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Federal law does not view same sex couples as a “suspect class” so as to require heightened scrutiny in evaluating marriage laws. Under federal law, laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians, in general, are reviewed under the deferential “rational basis” test. (And, no, this isn’t my doing either.) In its two cases dealing with the subject, the United States Supreme Court has never applied more than the “rational basis” standard to laws discriminating against gays and lesbians. Furthermore, in the second of the two cases, Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court specifically stated that it wasn’t sanctioning same-sex marriage by overthrowing a state law which criminalized same-sex sodomy. It simply held that sexual relations, between any two consenting adults, cannot be the subject of state legislation. Quashing a negative law is not the same thing as sanctioning a positive relationship based on protected behavior.
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If it was up to me, I would abolish all state sanctioned marriages and permit people to arrange their own interpersonal relationships based on contract and whatever ethical or religious norms they choose to live by. It is inconsistent with the view that marriage is a “fundamental right” to require a marriage license from a State. One does not license fundamental rights. It would also save us all a lot of tax money to keep from having to sort out the pots and pans and insanity of everyone who eventually gets divorced.
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Challenge yourself to think outside the box. Make yourself free in spite of everyone else.

John W, I don't really care if the Supreme Court has recognized homosexuals as a "suspect class". History will find that view as far wrong as the view that Blacks could never be citizens that a previous Supreme Court held.They clearly are, and the fact that the Supreme Court can't recognize that is a syptom of the discrimination against homosexuals, not a proof that they are not a "suspect class." Challenge yourself to think outside narrow legalisms. Challenge yourself to question the ingrained discrimination and intolerance in our society, even within the Supreme Court. But I'm sure you are too busy tirelessly campaining to ban heterosexual marriage to have much time to worry about the rights of homosexuals.