Friday 4 January 2013

Just Allow It Already

I have discussed the topic of Marriage Equality briefly before, actually it was 4 years ago, just after the last USA presidential election. Some interesting things have happened in the mean time; President Barack Obama announced in May that he supports same-sex marriage. He also supports the full repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  In 2011, the Obama Administration concluded that DOMA was unconstitutional and directed the U.S. Justice Department to stop defending the law in court. Same-sex couples can legally marry in nine states, however, Marriage Equality is not recognized nationally, at the federal level, in the USA.

I found this flow chart recently and really liked it:


I would like to quietly note that on July 20, 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act which provided a gender-neutral marriage definition. Be fore the Civil Marriage Act, same-sex marriage was legal in eight provinces and one territory; Ontario was the first in 2003. Most legal benefits commonly associated with marriage had been federally extended to cohabiting same-sex couples starting in 1999.

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