14th Amendment Provides for Same-sex Marriage

Individual states decide upon their own marriage laws for their residents, not the Federal government. We do, however, have a United States Constitution that governs the laws of each individual state.

Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides for guaranteed privileges and immunities of citizenship, due process and equal protection.

The Fourteenth Amendment: Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Constitution couldn't be any more clear on the topic of equal protection: No State shall deny any person equal protection. None-the-less, 29 states across America have state constitutional bans prohibiting same-sex marriage. It has been estimated that marriage law provides as many as 1,324 civil protections; yet, these states illegally deny same-sex couples equal protection provided by marriage law under the United States Constitution.

There is no justification to argue against this. The Constitution is the be all, end all of U.S. law. Even the Federal government has violated its own Constitution when it passed DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) in 1996 and was signed by President Clinton.

It's time to right the wrong that has been done by DOMA and the state bans prohibiting gay marriage. In time, the United States Constitution will prevail. It might be years before we see total and complete equality, but it will happen.