The Challenge of Same-sex Marriage: Federalist Principles and Constitutional Protections
Publisher: Greenwood Press | ISBN: 0275966240 | edition 1999 | PDF | 272 pages | 1,05 mb
In November 1998, the Hawaii and Alaska electorates voted to amend their state constitutions so that same-sex marriages would not have to be recognized. Rather than end the controversy surrounding same-sex marriages, the passage of these amendments will only spur more litigation, because the referenda themselves implicate constitutional guarantees and because amending a state constitution cannot lessen federal constitutional protections. Since same-sex marriages promote many of the same individual and state interests that opposite-sex marriages do, states will be unable to justify their same-sex marriage bans if those rationales are closely examined.