No. 14-556, 14-562, 14-571 and 14-574
IN THE
JAMES OBERGEFELL, ET AL., PETITIONERS,
v.
RICHARD HODGES, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.
VALERIA TANCO, ET AL., PETITIONERS,
v.
WILLIAM EDWARD “BILL” HASLAM, GOVERNOR OF
TENNESSEE, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.
APRIL DEBOER, ET AL., PETITIONERS,
v.
RICK SNYDER, GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN, ET AL.,
RESPONDENTS.
GREGORY BOURKE, ET AL., PETITIONERS,
v.
STEVE BESHEAR, GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY, ET AL.,
RESPONDENTS.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT
OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
BRIEF OF CONFLICT OF LAW SCHOLARS
AS AMICI CURIAE SUPPORTING
PETITIONERS AND REVERSAL

Tobias Barrington Wolff
University of Pennsylvania
Law School
3501 Sansom Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
twolff@law.upenn.edu
(215) 898-7471

Robert A. Long
Counsel of Record
Daniel E. Matro

March 2015

Counsel for Amici Curiae

COVINGTON & BURLING LLP

OneCity Center
850 Tenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
rlong@cov.com
(202) 662-6000

 QUESTION PRESENTED
The amici will address the second question
presented by these cases:
Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a
state to recognize a marriage between two people of
the same sex when their marriage was lawfully
licensed and performed out-of-state?

-i-

 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
QUESTION PRESENTED.......................................... i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................... iii
INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE ............................... 1
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF
ARGUMENT .................................................... 2
ARGUMENT .............................................................. 4
I.

II.

A State Has No Legitimate Reason To
Deny Recognition To A Validly Married
Couple Solely Because The Spouses Are
Of The Same Sex. ............................................ 4
A.

The Regulation Of Intimate
Sexual Conduct Is Not A
Legitimate Basis For Refusing To
Recognize Out-of-State Marriages
of Same-Sex Couples. ............................ 5

B.

The Expression of Moral
Disapproval Is Not A Legitimate
Basis For Discriminating Against
The Out-of-State Marriages of
Same-Sex Couples. .............................. 15

C.

States May Not Structure Their
Laws To Dissuade Unwanted
Citizens From Migrating To
Their Territory. ................................... 20

If A State Permits Same-Sex Couples To
Marry, Denying Recognition To A
- iii -

 Couple Solely Because They Were
Married Out Of State Would Constitute
Arbitrary Discrimination. ............................. 24
CONCLUSION ......................................................... 32

- iv -

 TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Page(s)
Cases
Atwood v. Riviotta,
No. 1CA-CV 12-0280, 2013 WL 2150021
(Ariz. Ct. App. May 16, 2013) .............................. 30
Baker v. Gen. Motors Corp.,
522 U.S. 222 (1998) .............................................. 28
Beggs v. State,
55 Ala. 108 (1876) ................................................ 17
Bowers v. Hardwick,
478 U.S. 186 (1986) ........................................ 15, 20
Campione v. Campione,
107 N.Y.S.2d 170 (Sup. Ct. Queens County
1951) ..................................................................... 18
Catalano v. Catalano,
170 A.2d 726 (Conn. 1961) ................................... 12
Christiansen v. Christiansen,
253 P.3d 153 (Wyo. 2011) .................................... 30
Commonwealth v. Lane,
113 Mass. 458 (1873) ............................................. 8
In re Dalip Singh Bir’s Estate,
188 P.2d 499 (Cal. Dist. Ct. App. 1948) .............. 11
United States ex rel. Devine v. Rodgers,
109 F. 886 (E.D. Pa. 1901) ............................... 8, 15
Eggers v. Olson,
231 P. 483 (Okla. 1924) ........................................ 18

-v-

 In re Estate of Loughmiller,
629 P.2d 156 (Kan. 1981) ..................................... 14
In re Estate of Stiles,
391 N.E.2d 1026 (Ohio 1979)......................... 14, 18
Etheridge v. Shaddock,
706 S.W.2d 395 (Ark. 1986) ................................. 18
Fensterwald v. Burk,
98 A. 358 (Md. 1916) ............................................ 12
Garcia v. Garcia,
127 N.W. 586 (S.D. 1910)..................................... 18
Hughes v. Fetter¸,
341 U.S. 609 (1951) .................................... 4, 25, 26
Kern v. Taney,
11 Pa. D. & C. 5th 558, 576 (Pa. Com. Pl.
2010) ..................................................................... 29
Kinney v. Commonwealth,
71 Va. (30 Gratt.) 858 (1878) ..................... 8, 15, 21
Lawrence v. Texas,
539 U.S. 558 (2003) ...................................... passim
Magnolia Petroleum v. Hunt,
320 U.S. 430 (1943) .............................................. 29
In re Marriage of J.B. and H.B.,
326 S.W.3d 654 (Tex. App. 2010)................... 29, 30
In re Marriage of Ranzy and Chism,
No 49D12-0903-DR-014654 (Ind. Super. Ct.
Sept. 4, 2009)........................................................ 30
In re May’s Estate,
114 N.E.2d 4 (N.Y. 1953) ............................... 12, 18

- vi -

 Mazzolini v. Mazzolini,
155 N.E.2d 206 (Ohio 1958)................................. 14
McDonald v. McDonald,
58 P.2d 163 (Cal. 1936) ........................................ 28
Miller v. Lucks,
36 So. 2d 140 (Miss. 1948) ................................... 12
O’Darling v. O’Darling,
188 P.3d 137 (Okla. 2008).................................... 30
Pearson v. Pearson,
51 Cal. 120 (1875) ................................................ 31
Pennegar v. State,
10 S.W. 305 (Tenn. 1889) ................................. 8, 19
People v. Ezeonu,
588 N.Y.S.2d 116 (Sup. Ct. Bronx County
1992) ....................................................................... 8
Port v. Cowan,
44 A.3d 970, 977-79 (Md. 2012) ........................... 31
Rhodes v. McAfee,
457 S.W.2d 522 (Tenn. 1970) ............................... 13
Romer v. Evans,
517 U.S. 620 (1996) ...................................... passim
Royal v. Cudahy Packing,
190 N.W. 427 (Iowa 1922).................................... 11
Saenz v. Roe,
526 U.S. 489 (1999) .................................... 3, 23, 32
Sosna v. Iowa,
419 U.S. 393 (1975) .............................................. 23
State v. Bell,
66 Tenn. 9 (1872) ......................................... 6, 7, 15
- vii -

 State v. Brown,
23 N.E. 747 (Ohio 1890) ......................................... 8
State v. Fenn,
47 Wash. 561 (1907) ............................................... 9
State v. Graves,
307 S.W.2d 545 (Ark. 1957) ............................. 9, 10
State v. Ross,
76 N.C. 242 (1877)................................ 9, 10, 21, 22
State v. Tutty,
41 F. 753 (S.D. Ga. 1890) ....................................... 8
United States v. Windsor,
133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013) .......................... 3, 20, 31, 32
Vlandis v. Kline,
412 U.S. 441 (1973) .............................................. 23
Constitutions and Statutes
28 U.S.C. § 1738C................................................ 28, 29
Cal. Const. art I, § 7.5 ............................................... 28
Cal. Fam. Code § 308.5 ............................................. 28
La. Const. art XII, § 15.............................................. 27
Va. Const. art. I, § 15-A............................................. 27
Other Authorities
Andrew Koppelman, Interstate Recognition of
Same-Sex Marriages and Civil Unions: A
Handbook for Judges, 153 U. Pa. L. Rev.
2143 (2005) ....................................................... 9, 27

- viii -

 Andrew Koppelman, Dumb and DOMA: Why the
Defense of Marriage Act is Unconstitutional,
83 Iowa L. Rev. 1 (1997) ...................................... 28
Herma Hill Kay, Same Sex Divorce in the
Conflict of Laws, 15 King’s College L.J. 63
(2004) .................................................................... 30
H.R. Rep. No. 104-664 (1996).................................... 20
Joel Prentiss Bishop, New Commentaries on
Marriage, Divorce and Separation
(Cambridge Univ. Press 1891)............................. 17
Restatement (2d) Conflict of Laws ........................... 24
Robert Leflar, American Conflicts Law (3d ed.
1977) ..................................................................... 18
Robert A. Leflar, The Torts Provisions of the
Restatement (Second), 72 Colum. L. Rev. 267
(1972) .................................................................... 26
Tobias Barrington Wolff, Interest Analysis in
Interjurisdictional Marriage Disputes, 153 U.
Pa. L. Rev. 2215 (2005) .......................................... 5
William N. Eskridge, Jr., No Promo Homo: The
Sedimentation of Antigay Discourse and the
Channeling Effect of Judicial Review, 75
N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1327 (2000) .................................. 22
William A. Fletcher, The General Common Law
and Section 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789:
The Example of Marine Insurance, 97 Harv.
L. Rev. 1513 (1984) .............................................. 17

- ix -

 INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE 1
The amici are the following scholars who teach
and write in the field of conflict of laws:
•

Lea Brilmayer, Howard M. Holtzmann
Professor of International Law at Yale Law
School;

•

Stephen Burbank, David Berger Professor for
the Administration of Justice at the
University of Pennsylvania Law School;

•

Herma
Hill
Kay,
Barbara
Nachtrieb
Armstrong Professor of Law at the University
of California, Berkeley School of Law;

•

Erin O’Hara O’Connor, Milton R. Underwood
Chair in Law at Vanderbilt Law School;

•

Kermit Roosevelt, Professor of Law at the
University of Pennsylvania Law School;

•

Joseph William Singer, Bussey Professor of
Law at Harvard Law School; and

1 Pursuant to Rule 37.6, amici affirm that no counsel for a party
authored this brief in whole or in part, that no such counsel or a
party made a monetary contribution intended to fund the
preparation or submission of the brief, and that no person other
than amici, their members, or their counsel made such a
monetary contribution. Petitioners’ letter consenting to the
filing of this brief has been filed with the Clerk.
The
Respondents have given blanket consent to the filing of amicus
curiae briefs in support of either party.

-1-

 •

Tobias Barrington Wolff, Professor of Law at
the University of Pennsylvania Law School. 2

The amici submit this brief because they
believe that conflict of laws principles will assist the
Court in analyzing the second question presented in
these cases: whether the Fourteenth Amendment
forbids a state from refusing to recognize the
marriage of a same-sex couple performed in another
jurisdiction, solely because the spouses are of the
same sex.
INTRODUCTION AND
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
I.
A state has no legitimate interest in
singling out married same-sex couples for hostile
treatment in interstate disputes. Even if this Court
were to conclude that the Constitution permits states
to discriminate against same-sex couples in their
own marriage laws, the common law of conflicts and
decisions of this Court together make clear that
states may not discriminate against same-sex
couples who have validly married in another state.
Common law courts have adjudicated disputes
over the recognition of out-of-state marriages since
the founding of the Republic. In cases involving
interracial marriages, consanguineous marriages
(e.g., marriages of first cousins or an uncle and a
niece), marriages following adultery and divorce, and
Institutional affiliations are provided for identification
purposes only.

2

-2-

 other contested relationship categories, courts have
had to determine what interests can justify denying
recognition to an out-of-state marriage that was
valid where performed but would be prohibited
locally. Three potential justifications for targeting
disfavored couples emerge from that common law
tradition: enforcement of criminal prohibitions on
forbidden sexual conduct; expression of moral
disapproval toward disfavored couples; and the
desire to discourage couples from migrating to the
state.
None
of
these
interests
may
be
constitutionally applied to a married same-sex
couple. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003),
forbids states from criminalizing sexual intimacy and
committed relationships of adult same-sex couples.
Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), Lawrence, and
United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013), all
reject moral disapproval as a justification for antigay
discrimination. And the constitutional principles
recognized in Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999),
prevent a state from structuring its marriage policies
for the purpose of deterring the migration of couples
it regards as undesirable. These decisions leave
states with no legitimate reason to target the
marriages of same-sex couples for hostile treatment
in their choice of law rules.
II. If a state permits same-sex couples to
marry locally, then there is no legitimate reason for
the state to deny recognition to the marriage of a
same-sex couple performed in another state. When
two states have the same policy on the core question
of who is allowed to marry, discrimination against
-3-

 the out-of-state marriage would be invalid under the
Full Faith and Credit Clause, Hughes v. Fetter¸ 341
U.S. 609, 612-13 (1951), and would constitute
arbitrary discrimination under the Equal Protection
Clause, Romer, 520 U.S. at 633.
If this Court holds that the Fourteenth
Amendment prohibits states from discriminating
against same-sex couples in their own marriage
laws, the imperative for the Court to address this
interstate recognition issue will remain. The degree
of hostility that married same-sex couples have
encountered in the interstate arena has been
unprecedented.
In constitutional amendments,
ballot measures, and statutes, states have targeted
same-sex couples and carved them out of wellestablished conflicts doctrines. Even following a
recognition of their equal right to marry, same-sex
couples will be at risk of continued hostility if this
Court does not make clear that states may not
discriminate against couples who have married in
another jurisdiction.
ARGUMENT
I.

A State Has No Legitimate Reason To
Deny Recognition To A Validly Married
Couple Solely Because The Spouses Are
Of The Same Sex.

If states retain some ability to discriminate
against same-sex couples in their local marriage laws
— an assumption that amici entertain here solely for
purposes of argument — they nonetheless have no
legitimate interest in denying recognition to samesex couples who are validly married in other states.
-4-

 The common law has recognized three interests that
states can rely upon in targeting disfavored couples
for hostile treatment in interstate marriage disputes:
enforcement of criminal prohibitions on forbidden
sexual conduct or cohabitation; expression of moral
disapproval; and a desire to dissuade undesirable
couples from migrating to the state. Prior decisions
of this Court make clear that none of these interests
is constitutionally permissible when used to
discriminate against same-sex couples. 3
A.

The Regulation Of Intimate Sexual
Conduct Is Not A Legitimate Basis For
Refusing To Recognize Out-of-State
Marriages of Same-Sex Couples.

The principal governmental interest that
states have relied upon when refusing to recognize
an out-of-state marriage has been the regulation of
intimate sexual conduct. Throughout much of the
development of American common law, marriage was
the only avenue for noncriminal sexual activity:
marriage laws operated in tandem with prohibitions
on fornication or adultery to give an exclusive
legitimacy to marital sex. When states used their
criminal laws to prohibit particular types of couples
from engaging in any form of sexual intimacy, courts
frequently concluded that they must interpret their
laws on the recognition of out-of-state marriages in
The arguments in this Part build on research first collected
and analyzed in Tobias Barrington Wolff, Interest Analysis in
Interjurisdictional Marriage Disputes, 153 U. Pa. L. Rev. 2215
(2005).

3

-5-

 line with that local policy. Whether a court granted
or denied recognition to an out-of-state marriage, the
primary concern was the manner in which the
request for recognition implicated the regulation of
sexual conduct within the jurisdiction. Where giving
effect to a nonconforming marriage would undermine
a state’s restrictions on sexual conduct, courts
usually concluded that they must deny such
requests. Where giving effect to a marriage would
not derogate from any conduct restriction, courts
often found that the state had no interest in denying
recognition.
This
relationship
between
out-of-state
marriages and regulation of sexual conduct was
given voice most directly in criminal prosecutions.
When a couple married in one jurisdiction, moved or
returned to another jurisdiction where an intimate
relationship between the two was forbidden, and
then offered the marriage as a defense to a
subsequent criminal prosecution, the clash between
the marriage and the state’s conduct restrictions was
starkly presented. In most cases, states refused to
recognize the marriage as an affirmative defense to
the prosecution because doing so would directly
undermine the prohibition on intimate conduct.
The decision of the Supreme Court of
Tennessee in State v. Bell, 66 Tenn. 9 (1872), is one
of the more frequently cited criminal cases on this
question, perhaps because of the stark terms in
which it casts the need for marriage recognition
doctrine to track the local jurisdiction’s conduct
restrictions. Bell involved the criminal prosecution
of the husband in an interracial marriage for
-6-

 violation of Tennessee’s fornication law.
The
husband and wife had been married in Mississippi,
which had no anti-miscegenation statute at the time,
and had then come to Tennessee, where interracial
relationships were categorically prohibited.
The
husband sought to interpose the Mississippi
marriage as a defense to the prosecution, invoking
the general rule that the law of the place of
celebration should govern the effect given to a
marriage. The court refused, warning of the hordes
of “unnatural” couplings that might invade the state:
Extending [sic] the rule to the width
asked for by the defendant, and we
might have in Tennessee the father
living with his daughter, the son with
the mother, the brother with the sister,
in lawful wedlock, because they had
formed the relations in a State or
country where they were not prohibited.
The Turk or Mohammedan, with his
numerous wives, may establish his
harem at the doors of the capitol, and
we are without remedy. Yet none of
these are more revolting, more to be
avoided, or more unnatural than the
case before us.
Id. at 9-11. As the Tennessee court explained some
years later, the refusal to recognize an interracial
marriage as a defense to a criminal prosecution was
necessary to give effect to “the very pronounced
convictions of the people of this state [in the criminal
code] as to the demoralization and debauchery

-7-

 involved in such alliances.”
S.W. 305, 307 (Tenn. 1889).

Pennegar v. State, 10

Courts in other states routinely offered similar
explanations when refusing to recognize a marriage
as a defense to a criminal prosecution or similar
enforcement action — in miscegenation cases,
prosecutions involving bigamy, and consanguineous
marriage cases. 4
The requirement in many
4 See, e.g., State v. Tutty, 41 F. 753, 761-62 (S.D. Ga. 1890)
(denying effect to a D.C. interracial marriage offered as a
defense to criminal prosecution for interracial fornication in
Georgia); Kinney v. Commonwealth, 71 Va. (30 Gratt.) 858, 866
(1878) (refusing to recognize an out-of-state marriage as a
defense in an anti-miscegenation prosecution because doing so
would undermine laws of the jurisdiction that “prohibit[ed] and
punish[ed] such unnatural alliances with severe penalties”);
United States ex rel. Devine v. Rodgers, 109 F. 886, 888 (E.D.
Pa. 1901) (refusing to recognize a marriage between an uncle
and his niece as a defense against deportation because “a
continuance of the relation . . . would at once expose the parties
to indictment in the criminal courts, and to punishment by fine
and imprisonment in the penitentiary”); People v. Ezeonu, 588
N.Y.S.2d 116, 118 (Sup. Ct. Bronx County 1992) (denying effect
to a husband’s purported second marriage in Nigeria as a
defense to a statutory rape charge involving a thirteen-year-old
girl in New York); State v. Brown, 23 N.E. 747, 750 (Ohio 1890)
(refusing to read an exception for validly married couples into a
statute criminalizing sex between an uncle and his niece
because the state is “not bound, upon principles of comity, to
permit persons to violate our criminal laws . . . because they
have assumed, in another state or country where it was lawful,
the relation which led to the acts prohibited by our laws”);
Pennegar, 10 S.W. at 308 (denying effect to a second marriage
by a couple who married following the wife’s divorce for
adultery in a previous marriage, because “their return to this
State, and cohabiting as man and wife” violated Tennessee’s
“lewdness” statute and threatened “public morals, peace, and
[the] good order of society”); see also Commonwealth v. Lane,
113 Mass. 458, 461-62 (1873) (preventing the prosecution of a
(continued…)

-8-

 jurisdictions that the state prove actual cohabitation
before a couple could be convicted for miscegenation
similarly revealed the concern with regulation of
intimate conduct that lay at the core of these
prosecutions. See Andrew Koppelman, Interstate
Recognition of Same-Sex Marriages and Civil
Unions: A Handbook for Judges, 153 U. Pa. L. Rev.
2143, 2151 n.36 (2005) (collecting cases illustrating
this phenomenon).
There are a few cases in which courts allowed
criminal defendants to shield themselves from
prosecution
through
the
invocation
of
a
nonconforming marriage. See, e.g., State v. Ross, 76
N.C. 242, 246-47 (1877) (recognizing an out-of-state
interracial marriage as a defense in a criminal
prosecution for fornication and adultery, despite the
invalidity of the marriage in the local jurisdiction);
State v. Graves, 307 S.W.2d 545, 550 (Ark. 1957)
(permitting the husband and parents of an underage
bride to invoke marriage as a defense to criminal
prosecution for delinquency of a minor, despite
deliberate evasion of Arkansas marriage laws). But
the paucity of such exceptions in the criminal context
proves the rule, and even in these cases the state’s
interest in reinforcing its local restrictions on
intimate conduct loomed large in the conflicts
Massachusetts man who was divorced on grounds of adultery
and then traveled to New Hampshire to evade a local
restriction and marry his former lover, because the relationship
was not prohibited under the criminal laws of Massachusetts);
State v. Fenn, 47 Wash. 561, 565 (1907) (arriving at a similar
conclusion for a Washington citizen who traveled to British
Columbia to remarry shortly following a local divorce).

-9-

 analysis.
See Ross, 76 N.C. at 246 (“However
revolting to us and to all persons . . . [an interracial]
marriage may appear, such cannot be said to be the
common sentiment of the civilized and Christian
world.”); id. at 247 (“The only evil which could be
avoided by [denying effect to the marriage] is that
the people of this State might be spared the bad
example of an unnatural and immoral but lawful
cohabitation.”); see also Graves, 307 S.W.2d at 554
(Smith, J., concurring) (“It was at first my inclination
to . . . [say] that although the validity of this
marriage would be recognized in this state our policy
against underage marriages should prevent the
couple from living together until attaining the age at
which they might have been married in Arkansas.”).
Outside the context of criminal prosecution, in
contrast, courts frequently gave effect to marriages
that would violate local restrictions on intimate
conduct, provided that the purpose for which the
marriage was invoked would not introduce
prohibited conduct into the state. The issue arose
most frequently in disputes over inheritance and
probate, where one party made claims on an estate
that depended on the validity of the decedent’s outof-state marriage. A court can give effect to a
marriage in administering an estate without
licensing any prospective violations of the
jurisdiction’s criminal code. Many courts explained
that the state had no weighty interest in denying
effect to an out-of-state marriage in such a case,
precisely because the invocation of the marriage in
probate did not interfere with local conduct
restrictions. In the absence of any argument about
the regulation of intimate conduct within the
- 10 -

 jurisdiction, these courts concluded, the state had no
reason to frustrate the private reliance interests of
the parties or to depart from the general rule of
comity that calls for the recognition of marriages
that were valid where performed.
The California Court of Appeal produced one
of the leading statements of this proposition in the
case of In re Dalip Singh Bir’s Estate, 188 P.2d 499
(Cal. Dist. Ct. App. 1948). Dalip Singh Bir involved
the probate of the California holdings of a native of
India who died intestate in California, leaving two
wives in India who both made claims on the estate as
widows. Both women had lawfully married the
decedent in India, but the trial court in California
refused to recognize the validity of the more recently
celebrated marriage, concluding that local law only
permitted the court to give effect to one of the
marriages. The appeals court reversed, concluding
that there was no good reason to deny effect to the
marriage when doing so would not interfere with any
restrictions on the regulation of intimate conduct
within California: “The decision of the trial court
was influenced by the rule of ‘public policy’ [against
polygamous marriages]; but that rule, it would seem,
would apply only if decedent had attempted to
cohabit with his two wives in California. Where only
the question of descent of property is involved,
‘public policy’ is not affected.” Id. at 502; see also
Royal v. Cudahy Packing, 190 N.W. 427, 427-28
(Iowa 1922) (recognizing validity of “Mohammadan”
marriage performed in Syria and granting worker’s
compensation award to a widow, even though the
“deceased could have had four wives” under the law
of the place where the marriage was celebrated).
- 11 -

 Many other common law courts reached the
same conclusion. The Mississippi Supreme Court
held in 1948 that interracial marriages should be
given effect in probate proceedings, despite that
state’s anti-miscegenation laws, because the
“manifest and recognized purpose of” those laws “was
to prevent persons of Negro and white blood from
living together in this state” and, where there is no
request for in-state cohabitation, “to permit one of
the parties to such a marriage to inherit property . . .
costs no violence” to the policy. Miller v. Lucks, 36
So. 2d 140, 142 (Miss. 1948). In New York, the Court
of Appeals gave effect to the Rhode Island marriage
of an uncle and niece in probate, even though the
marriage was prohibited in New York. That court
found nothing in the positive law of New York that
declared such out-of-state marriages so “void” as to
require exclusion of the relationships altogether
when the forbidden intimacy would not be given
prospective sanction. See In re May’s Estate, 114
N.E.2d 4, 7 (N.Y. 1953). The Maryland Court of
Appeals came to a similar conclusion when it
confronted a Rhode Island niece-uncle marriage.
Fensterwald v. Burk, 98 A. 358, 360 (Md. 1916).
Even when states declined to give effect to out-ofstate marriages in probate cases, they frequently
identified the criminal prohibition on intimate
conduct as the source of the weighty policy statement
that required that result. See, e.g., Catalano v.
Catalano, 170 A.2d 726, 728 (Conn. 1961) (refusing
to give effect to a marriage between an uncle and his
niece in a probate action because such incest carries
a penalty of ten years imprisonment and “[t]his
relatively high penalty clearly reflects the strong
- 12 -

 public policy of this state”); Rhodes v. McAfee, 457
S.W.2d 522, 524 (Tenn. 1970) (refusing to give effect
to the marriage of a stepfather and his stepdaughter
in an action for dower, because “where the same facts
which statutorily prohibit the marriage are also
made a penal violation, such is indicative of the
pronounced conviction of the people of this State
regarding such marriages”).
In states where the legislature has not
criminalized the intimate conduct of particular
couples, though forbidding the couple from marrying
within the jurisdiction, some courts have taken the
absence of a conduct regulation to indicate that the
state has little or no interest in denying effect to a
valid marriage from another state. The Supreme
Court of Kansas issued a decision to that effect in
1981, for example, in a probate case involving a
marriage between first cousins. “Although our
statutes prohibit first cousin marriages and impose
criminal penalties where such marriages are
contracted in Kansas,” the court explained:
[W]e cannot find that a first cousin
marriage validly contracted elsewhere
is odious to the public policy of this
state. The reason for the inclusion of
first cousins in [the Kansas marriage
prohibition] has become less compelling
in recent years as evidenced by the
legislature’s
omission
of
sexual
intercourse between first cousins in the
definition of incest.

- 13 -

 In re Estate of Loughmiller, 629 P.2d 156, 161 (Kan.
1981). 5
Throughout
these
interstate
marriage
disputes, the reinforcement of state laws prohibiting
disfavored intimate conduct has been the dominant
pragmatic interest that states have relied upon in
denying recognition to out-of-state marriages that
were valid where performed. Thus, in an interstate
dispute involving a married same-sex couple, the
principal question is whether a state has any
legitimate interest grounded in the enforcement of
prohibitions on sex or intimate conduct that could
support denying recognition to a valid out-of-state
marriage.
After this Court’s decision
Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the
question is no. In Lawrence, the
states may neither criminalize

in Lawrence v.
answer to that
Court held that
sexual intimacy

The Supreme Court of Ohio is the only court of which we are
aware that has come to a different conclusion, and it did so by
rejecting one of its own precedents that had previously
embraced the argument. See In re Estate of Stiles, 391 N.E.2d
1026, 1027 (Ohio 1979) (“One of the purposes of the new
Criminal Code . . . was to decriminalize certain unlawful sexual
behavior and leave the parties to whatever chastisement society
would impose without making them criminally liable. . . . We
do not believe that the General Assembly intended to change
the state’s public policy so as to favor fornication, adultery, rape
of one spouse by the other, sodomy, fellatio, homosexuality and
some forms of incest.”), distinguishing Mazzolini v. Mazzolini,
155 N.E.2d 206, 208 (Ohio 1958) (“It will thus be seen that firstcousin marriages in this state are not made void by explicit
provision to that effect. Moreover, . . . sexual relations between
cousins are not incestuous.”).
5

- 14 -

 between adult same-sex couples nor prohibit those
couples from sharing “a personal bond that is more
enduring.” Id. at 567. When Lawrence overruled
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), it
extirpated from the landscape of American
constitutional law the idea that states may condemn
same-sex couples as “revolting,” “to be avoided,” or
“unnatural,” Bell, 66 Tenn. at 11, and subject them
to criminal prosecution or categorical exclusion. It
thus foreclosed the common-law argument that
states can deny recognition to a married same-sex
couple in order to “expose [the couple] to indictment
in the criminal courts, and to punishment by fine
and imprisonment in the penitentiary” for sharing
their lives together, Rodgers, 109 F. at 888, or
“prohibit[] and punish[]” their relationship “with
severe penalties” as an “unnatural alliance[].”
Kinney, 71 Va. (30 Gratt.) at 866. Same-sex couples
are “free as adults to engage in [private sexual or
intimate] conduct in the exercise of their liberty
under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution.” Lawrence, 539
U.S. at 564. That freedom eliminates the primary
basis for denying recognition to a valid out-of-state
marriage.
B.

The Expression of Moral Disapproval
Is Not A Legitimate Basis For
Discriminating Against The Out-ofState Marriages of Same-Sex Couples.

The other principal state interest that courts
have invoked in discriminating against valid out-ofstate marriages has been the jurisdiction’s desire to
express moral disapproval toward certain types of
- 15 -

 forbidden relationship.
At common law, this
symbolic or expressive interest typically was offered
in tandem with a state’s more pragmatic desire to
exclude the relationship from the jurisdiction
altogether. States claimed broad power to regulate
private sexual intimacy during the periods that gave
rise to most interstate marriage disputes. As a
consequence, courts often did not delineate the
independent work that each of these state interests
performed when refusing to give effect to an out-ofstate marriage. Rather, the expression of moral
disapproval served as a symbolic counterpoint to a
state’s use of the criminal code to exclude the
relationship from the state altogether.
Expressions of moral disapproval appear most
frequently in discussions of incest and consanguinity.
Joel Prentiss Bishop, the nineteenth-century treatise
author on whom many courts relied in early
marriage disputes, offered the following account of
the general rule:
Should there be, as occasionally may
happen, a country or State permitting
marriages which by the common voice of
civilized nations are vicious past
toleration, such marriages, though
solemnized under the protection of its
laws, would not be within the protection
of the law of nations because lacking the
general favor essential. . . . [Such a
marriage] must be contrary also to the
common voice of Christendom. The
familiar illustrations, perhaps the only
ones of which a writer can speak with
- 16 -

 absolute assurance, are polygamous
marriages and those of excessively near
consanguinity.
1 Joel Prentiss Bishop, New Commentaries on
Marriage, Divorce and Separation §§ 857-58
(Cambridge Univ. Press 1891) (citation omitted). 6
In particular, when courts drew distinctions
between marriages that were “void,” “absolutely
void,” or “void ab initio” and those that were merely
“prohibited” — as with consanguineous marriages
within a primary blood line (siblings; parents and
children) versus those in a secondary bloodline (first
cousins; an uncle and a niece) — they frequently
relied upon arguments from morality to account for
the state’s interest in banishing the “void” marriages
from the state, often invoking the language of
natural law and Christian doctrine. In Beggs v.
State, 55 Ala. 108, 112 (1876), for example, the
Alabama Supreme Court explained: “Incestuous
marriages are prohibited — are void ab initio . . . .
Not only are they prohibited, but those entering into
them incur severe penalties . . . The incestuous
marriage contravenes the voice of nature, degrades

The term “law of nations,” as used by Bishop, encompassed
what we now describe as the conflict of laws in domestic
disputes. See generally William A. Fletcher, The General
Common Law and Section 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789: The
Example of Marine Insurance, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 1513 (1984)
(discussing the incorporation of principles from the law of
nations into domestic conflict of laws doctrine).

6

- 17 -

 the family, offends decency and morals, and is
absolutely interdicted.” 7
In a more modern formulation, the Supreme
Court of Arkansas, quoting Professor Leflar, has
framed the inquiry in terms of the level of “social
alarm” that a disfavored marriage would produce.
See Etheridge v. Shaddock, 706 S.W.2d 395, 396
(Ark. 1986) (quoting Robert Leflar, American
Conflicts Law § 221 (3d ed. 1977)).
Similar
assertions appeared in some miscegenation cases,
see, e.g., Eggers v. Olson, 231 P. 483, 484 (Okla. 1924)
(“The amalgamation of the races is not only
unnatural, but is always productive of deplorable
results. The purity of the public morals, the moral
and physical development of both races, and the
highest advancement of civilization, under which the
See also Garcia v. Garcia, 127 N.W. 586, 589 (S.D. 1910)
(“Incestuous marriages as spoken of by Bishop and referred to
by the authorities as being an exception to the [lex locis] rule
embrace only such marriages as are incestuous according to the
generally accepted opinion of Christendom, which relates only
to persons in direct line of consanguinity, and brother and
sisters, and does not embrace cousins.”); In re May’s Estate, 114
N.E.2d at 7 (concluding that a marriage between an uncle and
his niece “was not in the direct ascending or descending line of
consanguinity” and so “was not offensive to the public sense of
morality to a degree regarded generally with abhorrence and
thus was not within the inhibitions of natural law”); Campione
v. Campione, 107 N.Y.S.2d 170, 171 (Sup. Ct. Queens County
1951) (marriage between an uncle and his niece “is not
universally condemned” and so recognition “is not precluded by
reason of moral turpitude”); In re Estate of Stiles, 391 N.E.2d at
1027 (marriage between an uncle and his niece is “shocking to
good morals” and “unalterably opposed to a well defined public
policy”) (citation omitted).
7

- 18 -

 two races must work out and accomplish their
destiny, all require that they should be kept
distinctly separate.”), and in a special class of bigamy
cases that arose in states that prohibited a person
who had been divorced by reason of adultery from
marrying his or her paramour during the lifetime of
the jilted spouse, see, e.g., Pennegar v. State, 10 S.W.
at 308 (“[The prohibition] is expressive of a decided
State policy not to permit . . . the public decency to be
affronted, by being forced to witness the continued
cohabitation of the adulterous pair, . . . and believing
that the moral sense of the community is shocked
and outraged by such an exhibition, we will not allow
such parties to shield themselves behind a general
rule of the law of marriage . . . .”).
Arguments grounded in moral condemnation
are unavailable here, for this Court has repeatedly
held that moral disapproval of same-sex couples
provides
no
legitimate
basis
for
antigay
discrimination. In Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620
(1996), the Court struck down a state constitutional
amendment that excluded gay, lesbian and bisexual
people
from
generally
available
state-law
protections, holding that the law was “inexplicable
by anything but animus toward the class it affects”
and therefore had no “rational relationship to
legitimate state interests.” Id. at 632. In Lawrence,
Justice O’Connor found that “[m]oral disapproval of
a group cannot be a legitimate governmental interest
under the Equal Protection Clause” when applied to
the intimate lives of same-sex couples “because legal
classifications must not be ‘drawn for the purpose of
disadvantaging the group burdened by the law.’”
Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 583 (O’Connor, J., concurring
- 19 -

 in the judgment) (quoting Romer, 517 U.S. at 633).
The majority recognized the equal protection
argument as a “tenable” basis for decision, id. at 574,
when it repudiated the holding in Bowers, 478 U.S.
at 196, that same-sex intimacy could be condemned
as “immoral and unacceptable.” And in United
States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013), the Court
held that “moral disapproval of homosexuality, and a
moral conviction that heterosexuality better
comports with traditional (especially JudeoChristian) morality,” provides no legitimate basis for
discriminating against validly married same-sex
couples and denying them the legal benefits that
would be available to similarly situated opposite-sex
couples. Id. at 2693 (quoting House Report on the
Defense of Marriage Act, H.R. Rep. No. 104-664, p.
16 (1996)).
Just as Lawrence eliminates the pragmatic
common law interest for refusing to recognize the
marriages of same-sex couples, so Romer, Lawrence
and Windsor eliminate the expressive argument that
the common law recognized for denying recognition
to disfavored relationships.
The Fourteenth
Amendment prohibits States from relying upon
either justification to target married same-sex
couples for hostile treatment in interstate disputes.
C.

States May Not Structure Their Laws
To Dissuade Unwanted Citizens From
Migrating To Their Territory.

At common law, a few courts suggested that a
state’s desire to dissuade a couple in a disfavored
relationship from moving to the state might justify
- 20 -

 denying recognition to their marriage. Unlike the
interests in conduct regulation and moralistic
expression, which account for a large proportion of
the analysis in interstate marriage disputes at
common law, the desire to dissuade couples from
migrating to the state is often implicit. This is not
surprising, since the desire to dissuade a couple from
moving to the state was effectively subsumed within
the criminal regulations that prevented them from
living as a couple once they arrived. Nonetheless,
there are some notable exceptions in which courts
made their intent to deter migration explicit.
In one early anti-miscegenation case, the
Supreme Court of Virginia embraced the view that
the denial of any effect to an out-of-state marriage
could play a useful role in dissuading unwanted
couples from migrating to the state. Affirming the
criminal prosecution of the husband in an interracial
couple who had married in Washington, D.C., the
court opined that, “[i]f the parties desire to maintain
the relations of man and wife, they must change
their domicile and go to some state or country where
the laws recognize the validity of such marriages.”
Kinney, 71 Va. (30 Gratt.) at 870. And in State v.
Ross, where the North Carolina Supreme Court
recognized the valid marriage of an interracial
couple as a defense to a criminal prosecution despite
the existence of a local anti-miscegenation policy, the
dissenting judge left no doubt about the function that
he believed that local law should serve in dissuading
undesirable couples from coming to his state:
[I]ndividuals who have formed relations
which are obnoxious to our laws can
- 21 -

 find their comfort in staying away from
us. . . . It is courteous for neighbors to
visit and it is handsome to allow the
visitor family privileges and even to
give him the favorite seat; but if he
bring his pet rattlesnake or his pet bear
or spitz dog famous for hydrophobia, he
must leave them outside the door. And
if he bring small pox the door may be
shut against him.
Ross, 76 N.C. at 250 (Reade, J., dissenting).
Since it is now clear that states cannot
prevent gay and lesbian couples from forming
households and sharing intimacy, the desire of some
states to dissuade gay couples from migrating may
emerge as an independent justification for refusing
to give effect to a valid out-of-state marriage. That
desire finds expression in popular discussions of the
marriage issue, where it is not unusual to hear those
who resist the idea of marriage between gay couples
fret that, if states give effect to such marriages, gay
couples will be more likely to relocate or travel to the
state and become a visible presence. This desire to
dissuade married gay couples from joining the
community as a visible presence echoes what have
been called “no promo homo” arguments.
See
William N. Eskridge, Jr., No Promo Homo: The
Sedimentation of Antigay Discourse and the
Channeling Effect of Judicial Review, 75 N.Y.U. L.
Rev. 1327 (2000) (detailing the evolution of antigay
arguments). Some states have structured their laws
and policies to forbid government institutions from
promoting any sympathetic treatment of gay people
- 22 -

 or gay issues, particularly in employment and
educational settings. See id. at 1356-62 (discussing
government programs structured to exclude or
disadvantage gay people). It is not hard to imagine
states offering sanitized variations on these
arguments in interstate marriage disputes. “We
cannot forbid gay couples from moving to our state,”
the argument might go, “but we can encourage them
to move elsewhere by denying them access to
benefits that would otherwise serve as an
inducement for them to migrate to our communities.”
In Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999), this
Court made clear that any such policy of dissuading
migration is categorically illegitimate under the
National Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. In striking down a California welfare
restriction designed to dissuade residents of less
supportive states from moving to California to take
advantage of its more generous benefits, the Court
explained that the National Citizenship Clause
embodies a right on the part of citizens to relocate
freely within the United States without being subject
to penalty or dissuasion.
Id. at 492-96.
Distinguishing the special class of cases in which
states have placed limits on the appropriation of
“portable” benefits, see Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393
(1975) (access to divorce); Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U.S.
441 (1973) (reduced tuition at state-run educational
institutions), the Court held that a bare desire to
deter unwanted citizens from migrating to a state
“would be unequivocally impermissible.” Saenz, 526
U.S. at 506.

- 23 -

 Following Saenz, a state may not structure its
legal entitlements — including its policies regarding
out-of-state marriages — for the purpose of deterring
undesirable couples from migrating to its borders.
The right that Lawrence recognizes for gay couples to
form a household and share private intimacy is
accompanied by a right to move freely around the
country in choosing where to establish that
household. A state cannot assert any interest to the
contrary in an interstate marriage dispute.
II.

If A State Permits Same-Sex Couples To
Marry, Denying Recognition To A Couple
Solely Because They Were Married Out
Of State Would Constitute Arbitrary
Discrimination.

If a state permits same-sex couples to marry
locally, whether as the consequence of a
constitutional ruling or legislative action, there is no
legitimate reason for the state to deny recognition to
the marriage of a same-sex couple performed in
another state. If Ohio permits same-sex couples to
marry, for example, and a same-sex couple marries
in Maryland and then seeks recognition of the
marriage in Ohio, Ohio cannot deny recognition to
the couple simply because the laws of Maryland were
used to celebrate their union rather than the
substantively identical laws of Ohio. States may
differ in the “incidents” that they attach to a legal
marriage — for example, the nature of spousal
property rights, or the scope of the marital privilege
against giving hostile testimony — and states
typically apply their own law to both local and
- 24 -

 foreign marriages to determine such questions. See
Restatement (2d) Conflict of Laws §284 (“A state
usually gives the same incidents to a foreign
marriage, which is valid under the principles stated
in § 283, that it gives to a marriage contracted within
its territory.”). On the core question of who is
allowed to marry, however, if two states have the
same policy, the only explanation for a difference in
treatment would be discrimination against the out of
state marriage, which would be invalid under the
Full Faith and Credit and Equal Protection Clauses.
The Court set forth this principle in Hughes v.
Fetter, 341 U.S. 609 (1951), a case involving a rare
instance of discrimination against a substantively
identical out-of-state law.
In Hughes, the
administrator of an estate sued in Wisconsin state
court under an Illinois wrongful death statute. The
Illinois statute was similar in all material respects to
the Wisconsin wrongful death law. Id. at 612 n.11.
Nonetheless, the state court “‘dismiss[ed] the
complaint on the merits’” under “a local public policy
against Wisconsin’s entertaining suits brought under
the wrongful death acts of other states.” Id. at 610.
The dismissal was based solely on the fact that the
claimant was invoking the law of another state, and
the Court found this discrimination to be “forbidden
by the national policy of the Full Faith and Credit
Clause.” Id. at 613. Because Wisconsin maintained
no “antagonism against wrongful death suits in
general,” id. at 612, there was no legitimate reason
to refuse to give effect to the Illinois statute.

- 25 -

 The same principle controls the enforcement of
marriage laws in interstate disputes. If local law
prohibits showing “antagonism against [the
marriages of same-sex couples]”, id., then local
courts cannot show antagonism toward the
substantively identical marriage laws of other
states. Denying recognition to a same-sex couple
solely because they were married under another
state’s law would be an offense against comity
unsupported by any legitimate interest in the conflict
of laws, violating the Full Faith and Credit Clause
and constituting arbitrary discrimination under the
Equal Protection Clause.
This proposition ought to be self-evident.
Choice of law regularly begins with the truism that
there is no conflict to resolve when the laws of two
states are identical in all relevant respects. See
Robert A. Leflar, The Torts Provisions of the
Restatement (Second), 72 Colum. L. Rev. 267, 274-75
(1972) (“When there is no conflict between the laws
of the concerned states, there is no need to make a
choice between the states as to which law governs.
There is no conflict of laws, therefore no choice-of-law
problem.”). Hughes is an unusual ruling because the
hostility that Wisconsin exhibited toward the laws of
sister states in that case was a rare phenomenon. If
this Court rules that the Fourteenth Amendment
prohibits states from discriminating against samesex couples in their local marriage laws, then no
recognition issue should ever arise.
Nonetheless, the issue merits explicit
attention because of the hostility that married samesex couples have encountered in the interstate arena.
- 26 -

 That hostility has been unprecedented in the history
of U.S. marriage law. In a sharp departure from the
common law, unwelcoming states have refused to
recognize the valid marriages of same-sex couples in
multistate disputes for any purpose and under any
circumstance. There is thus reason for concern that
some states may continue to exhibit hostility toward
same-sex couples in interstate disputes in the
absence of clear guidance from this Court.
Many of the states that have prohibited samesex couples from marrying have also enacted laws or
constitutional provisions specifically drafted to single
out same-sex couples in interstate disputes and deny
them the more nuanced treatment that state choiceof-law rules afford to other couples. When Louisiana
amended its constitution in 2004 to deny “marriage
or the legal incidents thereof” to “any member of a
union other than the union of one man and one
woman,” it mandated that “No official or court of the
state of Louisiana shall recognize any marriage
contracted in any other jurisdiction which is not the
union of one man and one woman.” La. Const. art
XII, § 15. Virginia amended its constitution in 2006
to forbid “th[e] Commonwealth and its political
subdivisions” from treating the marriage of a samesex couple as “valid” if performed locally or from
“recogniz[ing]” the marriage if performed in another
state. Va. Const. art. I, § 15-A. 8 These states have
See generally Andrew Koppelman, Interstate Recognition of
Same-Sex Marriages and Civil Unions: A Handbook for Judges,
153 U. Pa. L. Rev. 2143, 2165-94 (2005) (collecting state law
provisions).
8

- 27 -

 carved same-sex couples, and them alone, out of wellestablished conflicts doctrines.
California provides a stark illustration of the
phenomenon. Decades ago, the California Supreme
Court concluded that “the lex loci contractus governs
as to the validity of [a] marriage” in all cases, even
when the parties have acted “with the avowed
purpose of evading our laws relating to marriage.”
McDonald v. McDonald, 58 P.2d 163, 164 (Cal.
1936).
When California enacted the measures
known as Proposition 22 and Proposition 8 in 2000
and 2008, it made same-sex couples a singular
exception to that generous recognition rule,
mandating that the marriages of same-sex couples
were neither valid nor “recognized” in California for
any purpose.
See Cal. Fam. Code § 308.5
(Proposition 22); Cal. Const. art I, § 7.5 (Proposition
8).
These hostile state-law provisions received
federal encouragement when Congress amended the
Full Faith and Credit Act in conjunction with the
Defense of Marriage Act. See 28 U.S.C. § 1738C.
That law is also unprecedented. It purports to grant
states the power to deny recognition not just to outof-state marriages but also to final judgments that
involve a claim of right based on the marriage of a
same-sex couple. See Andrew Koppelman, Dumb
and DOMA: Why the Defense of Marriage Act is
Unconstitutional, 83 Iowa L. Rev. 1, 15-18 (1997)
(describing the effect of § 1738C on final judgments).
As this Court has explained, the Full Faith and
Credit Act prohibits a state from ignoring the
judgment of a sister state merely because it has a
- 28 -

 substantive disagreement with the law underlying
the judgment. See Baker v. Gen. Motors Corp., 522
U.S. 222, 233-34 (1998) (full faith and credit permits
no public policy exception to the recognition of
judgments). Section 1738C is the only occasion on
which Congress has ever singled out a class of people
and excluded their final judgments from the
“nationally unifying force” of the Full Faith and
Credit Clause — the provision that “altered the
status of the several states as independent foreign
sovereignties, each free to ignore rights and
obligations . . . established by the judicial
proceedings of the others, by making each an
integral part of a single nation, in which rights
judicially established in any part are given nationwide application.” Magnolia Petroleum v. Hunt, 320
U.S. 430, 439 (1943).
In the years since same-sex couples began
entering into valid and legal marriages, some
interstate disputes have arisen involving divorce.
When married same-sex couples who live in hostile
states have sought access to family court for the
purpose of securing a divorce, many have been
denied that right. Hostile states have refused to
“recognize” the existence of the marriage even for the
limited purpose of presiding over its dissolution. See,
e.g., In re Marriage of J.B. and H.B., 326 S.W.3d 654
(Tex. App. 2010) (holding that the trial court lacked
subject matter jurisdiction to consider a petition for
divorce filed by a married same-sex couple); Kern v.
Taney, 11 Pa. D. & C. 5th 558, 576 (Pa. Com. Pl.

- 29 -

 2010) (holding that the court was “without subject
matter jurisdiction to grant a divorce” to a lesbian
couple married in Massachusetts). 9
Instead, couples have been relegated to
annulment proceedings, subjecting them to the
indignity of a declaration that their marriages never
existed and the denial of the tangible protections of
formal divorce. See, e.g., Atwood v. Riviotta, No.
1CA-CV 12-0280, 2013 WL 2150021, at *1 (Ariz. Ct.
App. May 16, 2013) (permitting annulment, not
divorce, because “an action to annul a marriage is
based on the premise that the marriage is void”); In
re Marriage of J.B. and H.B., 326 S.W.3d at 667
(permitting annulment, not divorce, because
annulment “establishes that the parties to the
ostensible but void marriage were never married for
purposes of Texas law”). The rare exceptions have
occurred in states that did not expressly address the
recognition issue when excluding same-sex couples
from marriage. See Christiansen v. Christiansen,
253 P.3d 153, 156 (Wyo. 2011) (permitting divorce of
9 See also In re Marriage of Ranzy and Chism, No 49D12-0903DR-014654 (Ind. Super. Ct. Sept. 4, 2009) (finding lack of
subject matter jurisdiction to grant a petition for divorce of a
same-sex couple married in Canada); available at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20720679/Order-on-Petition-forDissolution-of-Marriage-in-Re-Marriage-of-Tara-Ranzy-andLarissa-Chism; O’Darling v. O’Darling, 188 P.3d 137 (Okla.
2008) (affirming portion of trial court order that vacated divorce
decree where petitioner failed to disclose that both parties were
women). See generally Herma Hill Kay, Same Sex Divorce in
the Conflict of Laws, 15 King’s College L.J. 63 (2004) (exploring
the range of challenges that same-sex couples confront in
seeking divorce).

- 30 -

 married couple because Wyoming law “prevents a
same-sex couple from entering into a marital
contract in Wyoming” but “does not speak to
recognition of a same-sex marriage validly entered
into in” another jurisdiction); Port v. Cowan, 44 A.3d
970, 977-79 (Md. 2012) (identifying repeated failure
of state legislature to deny recognition to out-of-state
marriages of same-sex couples as basis for
entertaining divorce proceeding).
Even at the height of Jim Crow segregation
and the era of anti-miscegenation laws, hostile states
did not exhibit this level of antagonism and lack of
comity. As detailed in Part I, supra, many states
that prohibited interracial couples from marrying
nonetheless recognized interracial marriages for
some purposes when they had been validly
performed in other states. See also Pearson v.
Pearson, 51 Cal. 120, 124-25 (1875) (in probate
proceeding, recognizing the validity of a marriage
performed in the Utah territory between a white
man and a black woman, despite California’s antimiscegenation statute and even though the woman
had the status of a slave at the time of the union and
hence was legally disabled from marrying at all).
The degree of hostility that same-sex couples have
encountered in interstate disputes is at odds with the
common law. “It is not within our constitutional
tradition to enact laws of this sort.” Romer, 520 U.S.
at 633; see also Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2693
(concluding that “unusual deviation from the usual
tradition of recognizing and accepting state
definitions of marriage” calls for close constitutional
scrutiny).
- 31 -

 If this Court concludes that the Fourteenth
Amendment prohibits states from discriminating
against same-sex couples in their own marriage
laws, then the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the
Fourteenth Amendment prohibit states from
discriminating against same-sex couples solely
because they married in another state.
This
resolution of the interstate recognition question is
the necessary consequence of a ruling in favor of
same-sex couples on the local law question.
CONCLUSION
The common-law history of interstate
marriage recognition and the decisions of this Court
in Hughes, Romer, Saenz, Lawrence and Windsor
together make clear that there is no legitimate basis
for a state to single out same-sex couples who have
been validly married in another state and deny them
recognition. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits
such discrimination. Amici urge this Court to hold
that the constitutional requirement for equal
treatment of same-sex couples controls in interstate
marriage disputes.

- 32 -

 Respectfully submitted,
Tobias Barrington Wolff
University of
Pennsylvania Law School
3501 Sansom Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
twolff@law.upenn.edu
(215) 898-7471

Robert A. Long
Counsel of Record
Daniel E. Matro

March 2015

Counsel for Amici Curiae

COVINGTON & BURLING LLP

OneCity Center
850 Tenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
rlong@cov.com
(202) 662-6000

- 33 -