DOMA Repeal and the Truth About Full Faith & Credit (HuffingtonPost)
With the introduction of the Respect for Marriage Act and President Obama's strong endorsement of the legislation, we are closer than ever before to achieving the repeal of the so-called "Defense of Marriage" Act, the discriminatory 1996 statute that denies equal treatment across the board to committed same-sex couples. Predictably, opponents of equal treatment are making the same alarmist claims that succeeded for them so well when they got DOMA enacted fifteen years ago: that the Full Faith and Credit clause of the U.S. Constitution will require that a marriage performed in one state between a same-sex couple automatically be recognized everywhere in the country. According to this claim, states that deny the freedom to marry to same-sex couples will suddenly have their policies overridden by the decisions of Iowa, New York or Massachusetts.
These claims are false. They always have been. In fact, it has been well established for more than a century that Full Faith and Credit does not require mandatory recognition of marriages around the country in the same way that it requires mandatory recognition of judgments by courts (which is its core function). Insofar as DOMA was enacted to address a supposed full faith and credit problem, it was enacted on a falsehood. Now that repeal is on the horizon, it is time to put that falsehood to bed.
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Complete article at Huffington Post : http://huff.to/oPRgph
