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Full Faith and Credit: Past Due
On the eve of the California supreme court’s ruling on same-sex marriage, Teresa Morrison reflects on another decision 60 years ago by that same court, which defied popular prejudice to further marriage equality and turned the tide of the nation’s status quo.
An Advocate.com exclusive posted May 14, 2008
Full Faith and Credit: Past Due

Article IV, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution, more commonly known as the Full Faith and Credit clause, consists of just two sentences: “Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effects thereof.”

Two lines: a bracingly absolute statement, followed by a qualifying statement that has historically acted the caveat when social progress in one state seems unacceptable to another. So while the Full Faith and Credit clause prohibits any state from rejecting the validity of a marriage performed in any other state, in the current social climate special dispensation is granted to ignore any state laws recognizing same-sex relationships, as was the case barely more than four decades ago regarding interracial marriages.

Contemporary public and legislative handling of same-sex relationships in the United States has spookily mirrored that of mixed-race relationships in the pre–civil rights era, with a high pitch of emotional volatility resulting in an indecisive rancor in our constitutional law. As with the Federal Marriage Amendment, the U.S. Congress never managed to pass one tidy nationwide law banning the marriage of interracial couples, despite three concerted attempts between 1871 and 1928. Instead, states passed their own laws aimed at curbing “miscegenation,” a term coined by journalists during the Civil War -- as whites increasingly became sympathetic to antislavery causes -- to hype the looming specter of racial impurity, which many deemed against God’s design for mankind and a certain ruin for the social fabric of the nation, a kind of fear-mongering right-wing static that sounds downright contemporary to gays today.

In the mid 20th century, 30 states maintained laws banning marriage between whites and blacks, with over half those laws restricting contracts between additional races. In the 21st century, 45 states have either a law or a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to a union between a man and a woman; 17 of those laws or amendments go a step further to ensure that no same-sex relationship of any kind may be recognized by the state. Then as now, rather than trusting voters to pass such laws on their strictly biased motives, supporters saddled legislation with titles insinuating that a core concept (race! marriage!) was under attack and needed defending: Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act, the Defense of Marriage Act, the Marriage Protection Act. 

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Morrison is a copy editor at The Advocate. Read more of her writing at Neurotranscendence.com.
Keywords:  Teresa Morrison  california marriage  marriage 

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

  • Name: Gordon Posner
    Date posted: 2008-05-25 4:25 AM
    Hometown: Tolleson, Arizona

    Comment:

    Dear Elizabeth: PART ONE Hope is a fine thing, but foolish hope (without a basis in fact) is a dangerous thing. My point is that seeking relief in the courts is a losers strategy. Again, consider the results of the Massachusetts' "victory': almost every state (but one) that addressed the issue of judicially imposed gay marriage passed constitutional amendments to ban such action, which also have the effect of banning legislative action as well (the real purpose of the amendments). In all probability the issue is dead in those states for at least a generation.


  • Name: Elizabeth
    Date posted: 2008-05-19 5:14 PM
    Hometown: Los Angeles

    Comment:

    Gordon--Thanks for your follow-up comments. I understand better the legal issues you're citing, and indeed, that you are coming from a knowledge base as an attorney. I still stand behind my notion that your original comment, with its inflammatory language, was hardly a reasoned response to a piece that did not say that the California decision (whatever it was) would presage a U.S. decision. Rather, I think the author suggested that she hoped it would and that full faith suggested that it should, even if political realities suggested otherwise right now. I also want to note that the "hope" of which I was speaking was a more generalized one, not a Roberts court specific one.


  • Name: Gordon Posner
    Date posted: 2008-05-19 5:03 PM
    Hometown: Tolleson, Arizona

    Comment:

    Dear David: As a retired attorney I am well aware of what the Constitution says and doesn't say. Mere talimanic invocation of the Equal Protection clause doesn't guarantee success (read a little case called Plessy v. Ferguson). The real question is one of timing. Are gays and lesbians living in 1954, just before Brown v. Board of Education was decided and segregation was ended, or 1896 when Plessy blessed segregation? Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I don't see Chief Justice Roberts as another Earl Warren!


  • Name: Gordon Posner
    Date posted: 2008-05-19 5:00 PM
    Hometown: Tolleson, Arizona

    Comment:

    Dear Elizabeth: How are the two laws different? How will the results be opposite? Space limitations prevents a full answer, but read the Loving v. Virgina decision (the miscegenation case) and the precedents it relied on. All of them were based on the traditional definition of marriage. They provide no warrant for redefining the term. As for the result - if you believe the current Supreme Court will ever uphold gay marriage, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'm dying to sell you. (All the more reason to vote for Obama, if McCain appoints any more Alito's or Scalia's sodomy laws will be revived!)


  • Name: David
    Date posted: 2008-05-19 10:08 AM
    Hometown: Tampa, FL

    Comment:

    Here's what Gordon doesn't understand. The US Constitution already says in many ways that laws and rights apply to EVERYONE EQUALLY. We are not waiting for anybody to "grant" us the right to marry, we are waiting for them to recognize that we ALREADY HAVE the right to marry. And we will continue to fight against those who would DENY us that right until.


  • Name: Troy
    Date posted: 2008-05-16 3:02 PM
    Hometown: Indianapolis

    Comment:

    Elizabeth is right. Besides, a conservative U.S. Supreme Court doesn't mean that it would rule against gay marriage. Probably more likely that it would just refuse to hear the case as it waits for states to work things out, until it seems ridiculous (by what standard I don't know) not to allow it, as in Loving vs. Virginia. I didn't realize how many attempts at a Federal Ban on interracial marriages there had been. Almost makes Loving vs. Virginia look like the end of a much longer train.


  • Name: Elizabeth
    Date posted: 2008-05-15 7:47 PM
    Hometown: Los Angeles

    Comment:

    Geez Gordon, you seem to have missed several of her points pretty clearly. How exactly is saying that gay marriage laws and miscegenation laws are "different and opposite" an "informed" response? I can't see anywhere where the author suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court is going to rule about gay marriage anytime soon. Being hopeful about what today's decision might mean is hardly an "uniformed" position. I guess thinking that just makes me one of those fools of which you speak.


  • Name: Gordon Posner
    Date posted: 2008-05-15 6:34 PM
    Hometown: Tolleson, Arizona

    Comment:

    Indeed, an amazing article! Amazingly stupid and ill-informed. The two situations are completely different, and the results will be different and opposite. The issue of miscegenation is not the same as same-sex marriage. You can't count on the U.S. Supreme Court "granting" gay marriage (leaving aside the fact that the current court majority is rigidly conservative). All this approach (seeking rights by judicial decree instead of by legislation) will do is set back the cause of gay rights. The vast majority of States that considered the issue after the Massachusetts' decision passed so-called "marriage protection amendments", forever barring gay marriage. The one exception (Arizona) is reconsidering the issue, and pursuing judicial remedy will only assist the foes of gay rights. So make no mistake, history will brand those pursuing this issue in the courts as fools, who actually set back the cause for a generation, if not longer.


  • Name: Ann
    Date posted: 2008-05-15 3:31 PM
    Hometown: Minneapolis

    Comment:

    Amazing article Teresa! Hard to believe how it's 2008 and people in our country STILL need to fight for equal rights. You would think we live in the dark ages. Great news today! Let's hope it paves the way for the rest of the country! Hey- love your hair by the way! :)


  • Name: Shauna
    Date posted: 2008-05-15 11:32 AM
    Hometown: Glendale

    Comment:

    Absolutely right. Whatever we call it, we call it for any two people committing the legal contract that is "marriage," and confer the same economic benefits and civil rights to all. Nice hair, Teresa!


  • Name: Martin
    Date posted: 2008-05-15 10:21 AM
    Hometown: Washington DC

    Comment:

    I LOVE your hair. Xoxo. martinflaps.blogspot.com


  • Name: Gunfighter
    Date posted: 2008-05-15 8:35 AM
    Hometown: Prince William County, Virginia

    Comment:

    Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we are involved in a war of aggression in Iraq... ostensibly in the name of "Freedom" whise denying freedoms to our own people, here at home?


  • Name: The Misanthrope
    Date posted: 2008-05-15 8:19 AM
    Hometown: Ventura

    Comment:

    This is a fascinating and informative article that intelligently points out how prejudice, sadly, is still the foundation for many of our laws. Republicans again are looking for a wedge issue to drive racists voters to the poles.


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