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Since November 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that gay couples in Massachusetts had a right to marry, gay marriage has been a hot political topic. Some could also argue that the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 made gay marriage a political issue, but the 2003 Massachusetts ruling in conjunction with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordering his city to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in 2004 made the gay marriage debate a more prominent national issue. President George W. Bush was able to use state-level constitutional amendments that prohibited gay marriage to provide momentum to his re-election campaign in 2004 and push for a national constitutional amendment to ban the practice. Since 2004 the proponents of gay marriage have experienced significant judicial victories, with the Supreme Court invalidating an element of DOMA last year and four states legalizing gay marriage after the decision: New Jersey, Hawaii, Illinois, and New Mexico. Currently, seventeen states, along with the District of Columbia, recognize gay marriage and lawsuits are pending in federal courts to invalidate state constitutional amendments that prohibit gay marriage. Due to the growing number of lawsuits on the state level against gay marriage prohibitions, it only seems like a matter of time before the Supreme Court will have to weigh in about gay marriage again and extempers could confront questions about the constitutionality of gay marriage in the near future.
This topic brief will provide a brief history about the gay marriage debate, break down judicial decisions that are pending concerning the issue, and then provide a brief analysis of how gay rights could impact American foreign policy.
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