Legal Issues:

Religious Issues:

• Currently federal law does not reconize same-sex marriage. Consequently same sex marriages will not be and does not have to be reconized in every state. Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to prohibit reconigtion of same-sex marriages for purposes of federal enactments.
• Marriage is a "civil contract" created by the States which establishes certain duties and confers certain benefits.These benefits must not be taken lightly or for granted by couples.

• Many religious restrict the permanent bonding of two persons of the same sex.
• 88% of Americans are of a Catholic Religion which forbids sodomy, (the act of sexual behavior most commonly used between two men.)

• It is found that the state has a legitmate interst in encouraging procreation and child-reaering within the marital relationship, and that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples is rationally related to that interest.1
• Families consist of a biological mother and a biological father.
• "The Catholic Church views gay relationships as 'intrinsically disordered.' Locally, the archdiocese has been lobbying for a state constitutional ban of same-sex marriage, which is legal in Massachusetts"

What is Marriage?

What does the Constitution say?

• 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 of federal law, shall be constructed to require that martial status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.1
• An overview on Marriage presented by the Legal Information Institute

• Admendents made to the Constittuiton
• Notes on US constitution

• President Calls for Constitutional Amendment Protecting Marriage
• President Bush: Union between men and women is ‘the ideal’
• Same-Sex Marraige in the United States