This is sort of insane, but it exemplifies the point that legal scholars have been making: DOMA is not only flatly unconstitutional, but it’s just not sensible law:
In a case causing rising controversy in the US, a judge has told a Texan man he cannot leave his children in the care of the man he married.
Inter-state tension continues as the marriage between William Flowers and Jim Evans fails to be properly recognised in the second-largest US state.
Flowers had been married to a woman previously and fathered three children with her before they divorced in 2004. At the time, it was agreed she would keep custody of the children.
Over six years on, in early 2011, Flowers married Jim Evans in Connecticut, and began proceedings to claim custody.
Evans didn’t get custody, but that’s not the problem. The judge in the case has ruled that Evans can’t leave the children with anyone “not related by blood or adoption,” which specifically excludes his husband.
You see, this is the problem with wingnut ideas of “federalism.” Maybe back in the day, it was tenable to have states set their own marriage laws — this is still the position of even gay wingnuts. But now people move, they migrate, they travel, and it’s simply unworkable for marriage laws not to apply nationwide. Perhaps if DOMA were gone and Full Faith and Credit were in place for same-sex couples, it would be a better situation, as confederate states and unfortunate annexations like Texas would have to either like it or lump it when it came to recognizing other states’ marriage contracts. Of course, all this will be resolved one day when the Supreme Court steps in and forces those states to be seated at the grown-up table on the marriage issue, but until then…
