SSM LAWSUIT IS A LONG SHOT, LEGAL EXPERTS SAY: From the St. Petersburg Times

Two women married in Massachusetts want their union recognized elsewhere.

Paula Schoenwether and Nancy Wilson have been together for 27 years, through job changes and parents dying.

On July 2, they married in Massachusetts. Last week, the two Bradenton women filed a federal lawsuit in Tampa asking a judge to force the state of Florida and the federal government to legally recognize their marriage. The lawsuit, the first of its kind in the nation, hurls Schoenwether and Wilson into an impassioned and polarized debate. President Bush, most members of Congress and state legislatures, and most Americans oppose same-sex marriages.

And the law, at least in this case, does not appear to be on the women's side.

Andrew Koppelman, a professor of law and political science at Northwestern University in Chicago, said the suit "does not have a leg to stand on."

"I am a defender of same-sex marriage," he said. "I have every reason to want this couple to win. But this particular case sounds like a sure loser." ...

The lawsuit filed by Schoenwether and Wilson challenges the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act and a similar law enacted a year later by the Florida Legislature. Both acts define marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman.

The federal act adds that no state is required to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. And Florida's act says the state will not recognize same-sex marriages no matter where they were performed.

The lawsuit bases some of its arguments on the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution, which dates to the days when a young nation was reconciling the laws of the colonies. The clause says states should honor the public acts of other states.

Because Massachusetts legally sanctions same-sex marriages, "all the other states should be constitutionally required to uphold the validity of the marriage," the lawsuit states.

It's not that simple, legal experts say.

Historically, the full faith and credit clause has applied to judicial decisions, not legislation, said Koppelman, the Northwestern law professor. A Florida resident, say, loses a lawsuit and has to pay $1-million. Even if that person flees Florida, the full faith and credit clause makes that $1-million judgment enforceable anywhere in the country.

The federal courts have also made it clear that states do not have to acquiesce to everything another state might do. States can follow their own laws when it comes to public policy.

States do generally honor the marriage laws of other states. Florida, for instance, sets a minimum marriage age of 16, and then only with a parent's consent. But a 14-year-old Florida boy could travel to Massachusetts, which allows 14-year-olds to marry, and get hitched. Florida would likely recognize that marriage.

But think of that as a courtesy, legal experts say, not something the U.S. Constitution compels the states to do.

"A state need not recognize a marriage that violates its own public policy," said Cass Sunstein, a law and political science professor at the University of Chicago. "There has long been a public policy exception to the full faith and credit clause."

The lawsuit also claims that the federal and state defense of marriage acts violate Schoenwether and Wilson's constitutional rights to equal protection under the law and the implicit right to privacy.

Sunstein acknowledges federal courts could say that just as discrimination on the basis of race is unacceptable, so is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

"It's not unimaginable sometime in the future," he said. "However, it would be very surprising if federal judges declare this to be the law of the land any time soon."

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posted by Eve at 3:00 PM | link

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