NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR FOREIGN ATTORNEYS
Is Gay Marriage’s Issue a Travesty of Law or Civil Rights Violation?
World Book defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman who have made a legal agreement to live together.
When a man and a woman marry, they become husband and wife. In a marriage between gay couples how is the husband and wife defined?
In most world Religions marriage is an important religious ceremony. Is gay marriage accepted by any religion? Most couples, man and woman, decide to marry because they love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together until retirement and death. Is gay marriage contemplated as beneficiary by any Social Security Laws to receive benefits by the spouse and children when the other spouse dies?
Most couples, man and women, who marry plan to have children to raise them together. A husband and wife are legally responsible for the care and protection of their children. Marriage thus serves as the basis of family life. Are gay couples legally capable of having children? Who is legally responsible for the care and protection of the gay couple’s children? How does the gay marriage serve as the basis of a family life?
In the United States, about 50% of all marriages end in divorce. When a man and a woman divorce they must go through laws of equity which provide for division of assets and liabilities, alimony, shared parental responsibility, primary residential care, split custody, child support, etc. If a spouse died there are laws that provide survivor’s benefit to the spouse and children, if qualify even monthly death benefits. Are the Family Civil Courts prepared to deal with gay divorces? Is the Social Security Law ready to deal with gay couple’s disability, family survivors and Medicare?
A man and a woman must follow certain laws when they marry. There are no federal marriage laws each state has its own laws. However, all states laws prohibit close relatives from marrying each other. Laws also forbid a person to marry when he or she is already married to someone else. If some states laws legalize gay marriage would they also legalize marriage between close relatives and bigamy?
Some states permit a couple to marry even if the bride or groom cannot be present at the wedding ceremony. However, someone must serve as a proxy (substitute) for the absent bride or groom, called marriage by a proxy. Can a gay person residing in a state where gay marriage is prohibited be permitted to marry by proxy in another state where gay marriage is allowed?
In some states an unmarried couple living together as husband and wife can be declared by a court “married” after a certain period of time. The time period varies among the states that permit such common law marriage, but it is usually several years. A couple is not required to have a license or a wedding ceremony for a common law marriage. Can gay couples that have establish long term relationships consider themselves to be common law married by the courts?
A man and a woman expect certain things of each other even before they marry. After marriage, some husbands and wives cannot satisfy their partner’s expectations. They may become disappointed and unhappy with each other and have problems with their marriage. Couples with marriage problems mostly end in divorce. Once in court the legal system seeks help from a court’s mediator and/or a train marriage counselor specially where there are children. Is the legal system, the court’s mediator and/or marriage counselor capable of dealing and assisting gay marriage couples especially if there are children?
Almost every society has certain traditional ideas about marriage. For example, most societies expect man and women to marry as well the legal obligations, role and duties of a husband and wife. Has the American Society disregard these traditional legal obligations, role and duties when it comes to gay marriages?
Black’s English Law defines marriage, as distinguished from the agreement to marry and from the act of becoming married, is the civil status of one man and one woman united in law for the discharge to each other and the community of the duties legally incumbent on those whose association is formed on the distinction of sex.
Roman’s Law defines manus marriage as a form of marriage in the early Rome, which was formed in a relationship agreement called “manus” which brought the wife in to the husband’s power, placing the women as to legal rights in the position of a daughter.
In Old English Law, marriage is used in the sense of “maritagium” or the feudal right enjoyed by the Lord or guardian in chivalry of disposing of his ward in marriage.
In Feudal Law, avail of marriage, was the right of marriage, which the lord or guardian in chivalry had of disposing of his infant ward in matrimony. A guardian in socage had also the same right, but not with the same advantage.
Facilitation of marriage, in English Ecclesiastical Law, is the boasting or giving out by a party that he or she is married to some other, whereby a common reputation of their matrimony may ensue.
Marriage Articles are an agreement between parties, a man and a woman contemplating marriage, intended as preliminary to a formal marriage settlement, to be drawn after marriage.
Marriage brokage, is the act by which a third person, for a consideration, negotiates a marriage between a man and a woman.
Marriage ceremony is the form, religious or civil, for the solemnization of a marriage between a man and a woman. If a couple is married in a civil ceremony, a judge or other authorized official performs this ceremony. During the days of long sea voyages, the captain of a ship was authorized to conduct a marriage ceremony while the ship was at sea.
In a religious ceremony, although different religious groups have their own versions, most catholic ceremonies take place during a mass, and the bride and groom receive Holy Communion, marriage is a Sacrament.
Marriage Consideration is the consideration furnished by an intended marriage of two persons, a man and a woman. It is the highest consideration known to the law.
Marriage License, is a license or permission granted by public authorizing two people, a man and a woman who intend to intermarry. By law it is made an essential prerequisite to the lawful solemnization of the marriage.
Marriage Notice Book is a book kept, in England, by the Registrar, in which applications for and issue of registrar’s licenses to marry are rewarded.
Marriage portion. Dowry; a sum of money or other property which is given to or settled on a woman on her marriage to a man.
Marriage promise. Betrothal; engagement to intermarry with another person of different sex.
Marriage Settlement, is a written agreement in the nature of conveyance, called a “settlement”, which is made in contemplation of a proposed marriage and in consideration thereof, either by the parties about to intermarry, one of them, or by a parent or relation on their behalf, by which the title to a certain property is settled, usually, to provide for the wife and children, etc.
Fleet Marriages. There were in the neighborhood of the Fleet prison about sixty marriage houses, some of which were public houses and others not. There is little doubt that many of marriages performed here had false dates, that people who were married here impersonated others, and that women who wished to plead a plea of coverture or hide their shame were married to men who, for a trifling gratuity, married any woman who would pay them, though they had previously married others.
Interracial Marriage is a marriage between people of different nationalities or different racial origins.
Morganatic Marriage was the lawful and inseparable conjunction of a man, of noble or illustrious birth, with a woman of inferior station, upon condition that neither the wife nor her children shall partake of the titles, arms, or dignity of the husband, or succeed to his inheritance, but be contended with a certain allowed rank assigned to them by the morganatic contract.
Plural Marriage in general is any bigamous or polygamous union, but particularly, a second or subsequent marriage of a man who already has one wife living, under the system of polygamy as practiced by mormons.
Scotch Marriage is a marriage contracted without any formal solemnization or religious ceremony, by the mere mutual agreement of the parties a man and a woman in the presence of witnesses, recognized as valid by the Scottish Law.
Marriage Act Royal was an act of 12 Geo. III, c. 1 (1772), by which members of the Royal family are forbidden to marry without the king’s consent, or except on certain onerous conditions.
Married Woman is a woman who has a husband living and not divorced.
Gay Marriage today is a material fact, ultra posse non potest esse, et vice versa. What is beyond possibility cannot exists, and the reverse; what cannot exist is not possible. Unconstitutional in the reuse that the gay marriage legislation, court made law conflicts with most recognized general principle. That is to say that is unwise, based upon a wrong and unsound principle, which conflicts with a generally accepted policy. It is material because it goes to the substantial matter in dispute and has a legitimate and bearing the decision of this issue; in the English Sense. In the American Sense, a fact, an action performed, an actual occurrence. A transgression because neither mode nor measure is preserved, for everyone in this act ought to have a mode and measure.
This is an act based on materialism. In the philosophic sense is based on the ideas that matter is the only thing in the universe that has reality, and that matters is the basis of all that exists. Materialism performs thinking that physical changes in the body and nervous system cause all mental processes. It’s justified by pointing out that people can really know only what they see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. This denies the existence of mind or soul as distinct from matter, and insists that feelings, and thoughts will have no independent existence.
Materialism has always been a popular philosophy among most scientists, because, if everything in the world is made of matter, then we can analyze and understand the world according to the laws which govern the way matter behaves, this idea is called scientific materialism. According to it, everything that exists now is the result of factors and conditions that existed before, and everything that will exist in the future must develop from some combination or change in the factors and conditions that exist now. This idea is often called mechanism.
Conclusion. Should we believe that the latest decisions of some States Courts of the United States on the gay marriage issue have helped bring about a decline at public decency in the country and departure of moral laws from our system? Should we obey moral laws to gain the approval of Society? It is the laws of conscience, amounting to those rules and principles of ethics which relate to right and wrong conduct and prescribe the standards to which in our world our actions should conform in our dealings with each other
We are compel to save society which in turn will save “the world will make you suffer. But be brave! I have defeated the world”.
Respectfully Submitted,
______________________ ____________________ March 4, 2004 .
Dr. Humphrey H. Pachecker & Asst. Daniela Delgado
N.A.F.A. National Association of Foreign Attorneys
(School – Association)
Castro’s Psychology for Cubans in Cuba:
