Get Married in Vermont, Be Legal in California?

Well, if you can’t get married here, you can get married elsewhere and have it recognized here. That seems to be the new push out of the California legislature at least. SB 54 was introduced by San Francisco Senator Mark Leno. The Democrat is hoping to codify what the California Supreme Court has already stated when the refused to rule on issues regarding the out of state marriages in the challenge to Prop 8.

Conservative groups are, of course, correct that this does undermine the intent of Prop 8, which is to keep gays, lesbians and transpeople second class citizens and to deny them both legal and social rights. However, this law does uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and the Full Faith and Credit Clause there in. Conservative groups are, of course, welcome to create another proposition in order to overturn this law and add a provision to the California State Constitution which would put an end to recognition of out of state marriages, and that would then trigger a lawsuit which could very easily threaten to eliminate the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Conservative groups are, of course, busy quibbling about how this goes against the will of the people. However, no matter what the will of the people might be, the very fact that it takes a law to have a valid contract from one state recognized by another state is unconstitutional.

Senator Leno is fairly certain that this bill will pass. Currently Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Iowa and New Hampshire have legal same-sex marriages.