The Respect for Marriage Act states that any marriage that is legal in the state in which it is performed must be recognized and accepted in all other states. It basically means that if same-sex marriage is legal in any state, go there to get married, and you are good where you actually live.

It was expected that this bill would pass in the House, along a largely party-line vote, and then die in the Senate. Much to most people's surprise, it got 47 R votes in the House, including all four of Utah's representatives. Didn't see that coming.

Marriage Equality is very popular nationally, about 70% approval overall, and even 55% among the R party. However, "the base" is in general wildly opposed. I would expect Rep. Representatives in swing districts to vote for the bill, just because of the overall popular support. But there are no swing districts in Utah, and it got 4 for 4?

What's up with that? There was no explanation offered that I noticed. I'm guessing that word came down from Mount Sinai, er, 47 East S Temple to ixnay on the igotrybay.


In any event, the Senate leadership thinks they might be able to scrounge up enough Republicans to pass the bill. That would force all the R senators to either offend most independent voters or most base voters, depending on which way they vote - a lose-lose situation.

If it does come up, I will be interested to see how Mike "Gadianton" Lee votes (look it up, if you slept through early morning seminary, or are a neverMo).


And I am still stunned that the entire Utah House delegation voted for a national gay rights bill. This is the state that went hellbent for leather to pass Prop 8 back in the day.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2022 06:10PM by Brother Of Jerry.

On the other hand, the bill to keep birth control legal nationwide isn't having nearly as much luck. *sigh*

The church probably wants to defuse its relations with the LGBTQ+ community so that it can claim to be progressive even as it denounces a woman's right to choose.

I also doubt that the House bill is sincere. On the one hand, the "full faith and credit" clause of the constitution probably guarantees that states must respect legal marriages in other states. It does, for example, require that alimony and child support orders in one state must be enforced anywhere in the country.

On the other, what's happening in the House is that the Dems are trying to force the Republicans to clarify their stances in anticipation of the midterms. It's not necessarily a sincere attempt to protect gay rights.

>>On the other, what's happening in the House is that the Dems are trying to force the Republicans to clarify their stances in anticipation of the midterms. It's not necessarily a sincere attempt to protect gay rights.

It can serve both purposes. I don't always insist that my elected representatives be on the side of the angels. :)

Agreed. I am not criticizing the strategy.

Full Faith & Credit provision applies to judicial acts, it's not 100% iron-clad binding.
States can modify it's effects & applications.

I don't currently have access to either Westlaw or Nexis, but It could be interesting to research case law on this

GNPE not logged in.. Wrote:
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> Full Faith & Credit provision applies to judicial
> acts, it's not 100% iron-clad binding.
> States can modify it's effects & applications.

That is true. But often the judicial decision reinforces statutory laws, and family law is one of the areas in which that has happened most often. An example is VL vs. EL, a supreme court decision dictating that one state recognize a gay couple's statutorily compliant adoption of a kid in another state.

The same is true of child support laws, as I mentioned above, which is important because that's really the only way you can get at deadbeat parents. Each state has its system, born of some combination of statutes and common law, and the supreme court has ruled that judicial acts in accordance with those state systems must be given full faith and credit by all other states.

You are probably right to imply that a Congressional law would clear up any ambiguity because the supremes may prefer to enforce a law rather than rely on the FFAC clause.

Then again, today's supreme court can't be counted on to do anything given its abject disregard for established precedent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2022 07:16PM by Lot's Wife.

I find this very interesting. Utah had a clause that any marriage performed legally anywhere is Legal in utah.

So in the 60s even though interracial marriage was illegal in Utah if it was performed elsewhere it was considered legal.

Might have been due to the large percentage of mixed race marriages of military folk.

Do the idiots proposing this law not understand that different states have different age requirements to marry? Are the feds now supposed to write a federal marriage law?

Other states have different rules on how closely a person can be related. Still others have common law marriage and are they going to mandate if all marriages will be common property?

Trampling on states rights in a hurry to get things done.

Washington recognizes Domestic Partnerships, they’re an accommodation to older couples who would be disadvantaged as to Social Security if they marry; Utah doesn’t.

Sooner or later a DP couple will move to Utah ( + other similarly situated states) and test FF&C application < if they haven’t already>.

> Do the idiots proposing
> this law not understand
> that different states have
> different age requirements
> to marry?


I think they are trying to do a good deed, and are aware that there may be some yolks that get scrambled, so it's not all gonna be sunny side up. But there will be toast and hot coffee if you're patient ...

Metaphor mixing is one of my specialties!

I wonder if they might vote like this in order to leave open the possibility of modifying the Utah definition of marriage in the future (towards polygamy? It's still 'essential for salvation'...) while maximizing the chances of other states accepting it.

I think it's common sense. You know what a mess not having marriages legally recognized across state lines would be?

Sounds like a pragmatic path to a troubling question. It's all politics anyway. What would these congressmen have to gain by voting to take back what many take for granted? They'd be booed off stage for supporting something biblical that's unpopular.

Yeah, maca. They wouldn't try to roll back rights that people take for granted. (Eye roll)

I was a Tax Aide volunteer in Utah in the 20-teens. Utah did not recognize Same Sex Marriages (SSM) for income tax purposes, the federal government did.

The net result was that an SSM couple had to prepare 5 tax returns: 1 federal joint return, 2 federal single returns, to get the numbers for doing 2 state single returns.

It was expensive, time consuming and error-prone for same sex couples.

If they were married in a SSMarriage state…

BoJ was a tax accountant?

I must revise my mental image of the man to include a green visor as well as a slide rule.

I could see prolifers giving into gay marriages if they thought it would save babies.

Yes, that's the point I was trying to make above.

Don't mean to attempt to take credit for your insight. I don't.

Oh, I have no problem with it. We often have the same insights and express them differently.

I was simply saying I agree with you.

>> ixnay on the igotrybay.

That's my thought. They want to be respected as a giant corporation, err, I mean religion. Reputation is important.

They need more volunteers.

All of those temples are not going to clean themselves, now are they?

Nope and as their workforce dies little biases will change. They will not marry gay people ever though.

Give credit where it is do to encourage more similar behavior.

I ride the church's ass on gay rights from the perspective that polygamy was seen as an "alternative" lifestyle by the rest of the the Christian United States in the 19th Century and the Mormons were persecuted for it. A liberal reading of the 1st Amendment should have been on their side. The arguments made on the Mormon side of Reynolds V. United States (1879) would support the right to gay marriage in 2015 if the right were to be defended primarily from the 1st Amendment angle. Before I had my name removed from the church, before my doubts about God and the gospel were cemented, back when I still had a measure of pride in my heritage, the argument made by LGBT advocates that the Mormons of all people should have been leading the charge AGAINST prop 8, not for it, really hit me hard.