The Federal Marriage Amendment

[BlondeIntel]

Re: "Neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups"

My questions are:

1. Is there a legal definition of "the union of a man and a woman"?

2. What are the "legal incidents" of marital status?

2. Will this clause provide grounds for taking children away from unmarried heterosexual parents?

3. Will this clause provide grounds for refusing to allow single persons to adopt children with special needs?


The Federal Marriage Amendment

"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."

"Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

 

[abezon]

1. Nope. The definition of man & woman differs from state to state. Some states go by genitals, so a post-op male-to-female transexual would be legally male. Some states go by DNA, so that same person would be legally female. Some states use both definitions, depending on circumstance. Prisons generally use the genital test, but marriage licenses in the same state might use the DNA test. An interesting question would be what happens if a genetically male & female couple legally marry, then one has a sex change operation. Right now, they would still be legally married, even if they could not have gotten married after the operation. I think this case actually happened in Texas & the court found the 2 were still married.

2. "Legal incidents" are the 2000-odd rights, responsibilities & benefits that married couples get, including automatic inheritance, free health care benefits for spouses, social security survivor benefits, different rules for evaluating credit when applying for a loan, automatic parentage of a spouse's children born via artificial insemination, etc.

The other 2. Not unless the judge twists the wording into a pretzel.

3. Only if the state limited adoptions to married couples.