Massachusetts Goes After DOMA - Granite Grok

Massachusetts Goes After DOMA

 

Marriage

The Union leader is reporting this morning that a US judge in Boston has found DOMA, the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, to be unconstitutional on the grounds that it prevents the state from administering federal aid to gay married couples.  His ruling only affects Massachusetts but clearly has broader implications.

I both agree and disagree.  It has always been my position that the states interest is limited to the contract of union.  As such my objection has never been to civil unions–which people of all "orientations" have access to in New Hampshire–but to the state forcing a modification of the religious concept of marriage.  It was an unnecessary political stunt.  Religions should be free to decide for themselves whom they will marry and the state should then be obligated to acknowledge that religious contract like any other legal union of consenting adults.

In reality, we should not even need DOMA, but the lefts lawsuit culture made it necessary and as with most federal law it invariably overreaches.  DOMA’s only purpose should be to protect states rights to make these definitions on their own, defending them from interlopers who move into the state and continually sue in an effort to subvert the will of the people who live there.   Instead we got another law that also defines where and how federal dollars may be spent–a dependency problem in and of itself, created by big government progressives on both sides of the aisle for this very purpose; to force states to comply to interpretations from central planners outside their political borders.

In the end, I agree that Massachusetts has the right to define what contracts it will honor and how–though it would be nice if the SJC (and the judicial system in general) would let the people decide these things themselves.  It should also be free to decide what benefits they are entitled to when that money comes from inside the state. But when it comes to federal money, well, it’s not their money anymore is it?

Massachusetts obligation is to spend federal money the way every other state does as defined by the central government it has coddled and grown for decades.  And while this is clearly an effort to take DOMA to task by starting in a environment hostile to it, the Bay State has no majority standing on how it can spend other peoples money.  Dependency comes with a responsibility to the will of others.  So as long as Massachusetts has to pimp itself out just to get by, all I have to say is too damn bad.

 

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