Even though the federal government doesn’t recognize legal same-sex marriages, the U.S. Census Bureau will count them as such if they marked the “married” box on the 2010 Census. Outrage, says predictably outraged SaveCalifornia.com president and public nuisance Randy Thomasson: “Marriage is only for a man and woman. That’s the law they need to follow. This needs to be a lawsuit. Somebody needs to sue the federal government to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act.” So, um, do it?
[photo via Life]
Mike L.
Q: If someone were to sue the FeGov over the Census to enforce DOMA and they were to lose in the Supreme Court, would that inturn invalidate DOMA?
Paschal
@Mike L.: That depends entirely on the reasoning used by the U.S. Supreme Court. It would probably be the case that the plaintiffs would argue that DOMA is not being enforced properly by the census counting married gay couples. If the U.S. Supreme Court agreed then the census would have to be changed. The court might want to avoid deciding the constitutionality of DOMA altogether and simply rule on whether it was being enforced properly. But, of course, the court could issue a ruling about the constitutionality of DOMA even if not asked to. This is what happened with the ruling on campaign finance earlier this year when the court made a ruling on a broader issue than was put beofre them originally. I doubt the U.S. Supreme Court would even bother hearing a case about married gay couples on the census.
Mike L.
@Paschal: Thanks, I’m sure they wouldn’t bother either, it’d be too trivial for them to hear the case regardless of the outcome from the lower courts.
Devon
Haha, as if anyone has to sue Barack Obama to get him to enforce DOMA.
Cam
No. 1 · Mike L.
Q: If someone were to sue the FeGov over the Census to enforce DOMA and they were to lose in the Supreme Court, would that inturn invalidate DOMA?
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Yes, unless the court wrote their decision in a ridiculously narrow way that could only be applied to cases involving the census. But even if they did that, then the next time anybody sued to overturn DOMA they could still pull up the courts reasoning in the first case and use it in their own case. Trust me, NONE of the anti-gay groups will sue on this one, they know that there would be a shot at their case being responsible for killing DOMA.
anonymous
If a silly, frivolous lawsuit against Obama is being asked for then the person this article needs to be forwarded to is Alan Keyes.
That ignoramus, who amounts to nothing but a cruel pic-a-ninny for the GOP, is still smarting over his senate loss to Obama and can not for the life of him understand NO ONE in the GOP wants him around, unless they need a black man to make an ass of himself, which he has become an expert at.
Yes, Alan Keyes is your man.
Hyhybt
Who would have standing to file such a suit?
wannabegay
well, what if someone is truly married in CA, MA or any other state that allows (or allowed) gay marriages?! then what? that person is legally married at the state level, but not married at the federal level. the problem is that usually state laws are made to correspond to fed laws. this issue is interesting, legally and democratically speaking, but there’s no right answer. there’s no past decisions, there’s no regulations, there’s no stipulation or law, nothing. it’s a judiciary hole and if something like this gets in front of a judge he/she will decide based on nothing, except some crazy evidence about history of discrimination, about gay bashing etc (which are legally not so relevant, except maybe for the common law)
Steve
They are just going to count, “the number of households in which two persons of the same sex answered that their relationship is ‘husband or wife'”. Counting the number of people who marked a particular box on a questionnaire, is a common activity for pollsters and statisticians. I am sure they will count the number of people who mark each box on the form, and correlate answers for each pair of boxes. It has nothing to do with “recognizing” same-sex marriages. It’s just counting the answers that are given.
poonisha
for me it’s like this : abolish legal marriage in total, guarantee equal tax status blah blah blah for everyone..if you want to join someone’s hip do it on your own time and without federal benefits.
arg
Hyhybt
@poonisha: ….which would expand the problems of gay international couples to straight ones. Among other problems, but that’s the one that stands out at the moment.
Cam
No. 10 · poonisha
for me it’s like this : abolish legal marriage in total, guarantee equal tax status blah blah blah for everyone..if you want to join someone’s hip do it on your own time and without federal benefits.
arg
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This would kill any regognition of “Coupledom” internationally, i.e. you’re traveling and you need to prove that you have the right to visit the person who just got hit by a cab in France…ooops, sorry we don’t have marriage int he U.S. anymore so you aren’t family, you aren’t married….guess the French Doctors get to make all the decisions.