Access to Relationships

Question 1

Thomas v. State

What did this case represent?

what was the holding?

Answer 1

• The criminalization of non-marital relations; reflects the concerns around cohabitation and the regulation around who you have sex with (at this time, sex was only for wedlock).
• Privacy was only afforded as a legal privilege to those who were married.

“one act” of secret lewdness was not enough to convict Defendant of the crime because it requires cohabitation.

Question 2

Pace v. State of Alabama

What was the holding?

Answer 2

A state law that criminalizes interracial relationships or marriage is not unconstitutional if punishment to both individuals is equal.

shows the historical context of racial discrimination in marriage laws, with the Court upholding the law based on formal equality of punishment.

Question 3

CRIMINAL + CIVIL REGULATION OF SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS

What other ways does the State control our relationships?

Answer 3

• Heartbalm laws: torts to remedy broken hearts, including claims of alienation of affection, wrongful seduction, and breach of the promise to marry.
• Age of Consent: almost all states set the age of consent for sex to 16 or 17.
  * consensual sex with an adult while under the age of consent can still be seen as statutory rape.
  * Romeo + Juliet laws sets consent age for 17 but deems sex consensual if with someone no more than 3 years older/younger.
• Criminalization of adultery, bastardy, fornication, cohabitation

Question 4

Eisenstadt v. Baird

Holding?

Answer 4

• Right to privacy extends to procreation for married and unmarried people.
• Contraceptives must be available regardless of marital status.

→ derived from Griswold’s right to privacy from 14th amd.

Question 5

Lawrence v. Texas

What right was recognized under Lawrence?

Answer 5

• Individuals have a liberty right to engage/relationship in voluntary non-commercial sexual activity in private.
• Emphasizes privacy in intimate situations.
• Morality alone is not a legitimate state interest to justify criminalization.

Same-sex couples also have a right to privacy. Overruled Bowers which held that gay people don’t have a right to sodomy.

Question 6

Eligibility to Marry

What are the three substantive restrictions on choice of a marriage partner?

Answer 6

1. must be different sex (overruled by Obergefell)
2. cannot be related (incest prohibition)
3. only two spouses (polygamy prohibition)

Question 7

Loving v. Virginia

Holding?

Level of scrutiny?

Answer 7

• Interracial marriage ban violates Equal Protection and Due Process (strict scrutiny).
• Marriage as a mechanism for social mobility (rights, benefits).

Strict scrutiny. both racial classifications (Equal Protection) and intrusion on individual choice (Due Process).

Question 8

Goodridge v. Department of Public Health

Holding?

What were the State’s arguments against same-sex marriage? and the Court’s response?

Answer 8

• Denying same-sex couples marriage rights violates fundamental principles of individual liberty and equality, challenging discriminatory state marriage licensing schemes.
• Marriage is driven by the exclusive and permanent commitment of the partners to each other

procreation, child-rearing, financial resources
* Court rejected the argument that procreation and specific family structures were marriage requirements
* Lacked evidence to show that child-rearing by a same-sex couple would be harmful to children or family welfare.
* Same-sex couples’ financial and familial interdependence effectively countered arguments limiting their marriage rights.

Question 9

Hernandez v. Robles

What decision did the Court reach here?

Answer 9

• NY’s state interests to channel “procreative sex into stable units” is sufficient to justify ban on same-sex marriage.
  
  • (1) promoting relationship stability and
  • (2) presumed child welfare benefits of heterosexual parenting.

• Court’s reasoning relies on contested assumptions about family structures, procreation, and child development:
  * (1) same-sex couples do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse and the instability of opposite sex couples presents a danger to children - “accidental vs responsible procreation” – marriage channels procreative sex into stable units
  * (2) opposite sex two-parent home advantage from POV of raising children

Question 10

**Obergefell v. Hodges **

What were the constitutional arguments in this case?

Answer 10

• Equal protection clause → unequal treatment of same-sex couples (in the access of marriage)
• Substantive due process → infringement of a fundamental right (right to marriage)
• not arguing that the purpose of the law was intent to engage in discrimination but the effect of denial to access marriage causes *subordination and disrespect that arises from the unequal protection *(key to EQP analysis)

Question 11

Obergefell v. Hodges

What does the dissent in Obergefeel think is the right at issue?

Answer 11

• the right to same-sex marriage
• they do not seek privacy or protection from state intervention, but rather formal recognition of same-sex marriage
• constitution does not give the states power to give rights to people.
• the fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make the state change its definition of marriage

in contrast to the majority’s view as “the right to marry”

Question 12

FOUR PRINCIPLES OF MARRIAGE

What are the 4 principals of marriage that support the argument that it is **not constitutional to limit marriage **

Answer 12

1. autonomy → the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy → connection to privacy and Loving v. Virginia
2. marriage’s importance to individuals → fundamental because it supports a two-person union unlike any other in its importance to the committed individuals
   3.marriage’s role in safeguarding children and families→ draws meaning from related rights of child rearing, procreation, and education → “permanency and stability”
3. centrality of marriage to the social order→ marriage is a keystone of our social order → governmental rights, benefits and responsibilities –taxation, inheritance, hospital access, medical decision-making authority

Question 13

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

What are some of the harms to same-sex couples because of exclusion from marriage?

Answer 13

• material → inability to have rights in medical decisions, spousal privilege, tax and inheritance benefits, etc
• stigmatic → different status signal relationship is less deserving

Question 14

INCEST

What is one of the justifications for a prohibition on incestual relationships?

Answer 14

• health reasons
• the risk to the couple’s offspring of genetic deformity

Question 15

Israel v. Allen

Holding?

Answer 15

• Incest prohibition, including by adoption, not rationally related to state interest as adoption is statutory, not genetic.

difference between biological and legal relationships.

Question 16

PLURAL MARRIAGE

What is a plural marriage?

Answer 16

• A marriage between more than two people.

No state allows this.

Question 17

State v. Holm

Holding?

What are the state’s interests?

Answer 17

• State constitution does not shield polygamous relationships.
• Lawrence expressly limited its holding to NOT include this relationship given the harm the state recognizes polygamy effects onto monogamous unions

States can restrict marriage to two individuals based on preserving traditional marriage, protecting children, and administrative concerns.

Question 18

State v. Holm

How to frame state interest in restricting marriage to two individuals?

Answer 18

• Marriage – based in Obergefell the institution of marriage as a two-person union;
• Administrative – tax; efficiency of court systems/ judicial and administrative systems
• Protection of children (articulated in state v holm)
• Preserving the “American” common tradition of marriage

Question 19

Common Law Marriage

What are the traditional elements + results of a common-law marriage?

Include ones seen in statutes in class

Answer 19

1. intention to marry (from both parties)
2. a present agreement to marry or cohabitation in some states
3. holding out as married

results
* same as legal marriage
* only difference is in how it is contracted
* even dissolution is the same as divorce

Question 20

Common Law Marriage

What is the Putative Spouse Doctrine?

Answer 20

where one spouse in the relationship has a good faith belief that they were married to the law in certain scenarios will treat them as married – more legally relevant than common law marriage

Question 21

Hargrave v. Duval-Couetil

Why did this couple fail to establish a common-law marriage?

Answer 21

Oklahoma requirements
(1) a mutual agreement or declaration of intent to marry (clear and mutual agreement)
(2) consummation by cohabitation
(3) publicly holding themselves out as husband and wife
to be proved by clear and convincing evidence
* did not meet the elements bc Hargrave testified that they entered into an “implicit agreement” with no explicit moment or agreement to be married (1st)
* and there was no clear intent to marry (1st)

did cohabitate and hold themselves out as married, but not sufficient because of lack of “intent”

Question 22

Common Law Marriage

What are the benefits and the drawbacks of common-law marriage?

Answer 22

• Benefits: additional option for couples who did not want legal marriage but want benefits; solution to illegitimacy of non-marital unions and the children that are born out of them by giving them legitimacy
• Drawbacks: there is no longer stigma around children born out of wedlock + system is not necessary.