Video conferencing and remote connection technologies could make it easier for same sex couples who live in states that don’t allow gay marriage to get married in states that do.
Professors Adam Candeub and Mae Kuykendall, who run the E-Marriage Project over at Michigan State Law School, said in an article that couples shouldn’t have to physically be in a state to get married under its laws. Instead, they should be allowed to use remote connection technologies to get married by proxy.
The professors note that states let out-of-state residents use their laws all the time. For example, people can form businesses in other states or write provisions that make another state’s law govern a contract.
Even with marriage, states have previously let people get married without actually being there. A press release about the article explains:
The couple’s physical presence within the particular state authorizing their marriage has never been a requirement the states must impose in order to marry couples. Couples have for centuries married by proxy, mail, and telephone. The military has for many years recognized such marriages as legal for purposes of spousal allowances and death benefits.
Would these marriages be recognized in the couples home state? Probably not, unless there’s already a law recognizing out of state gay marriage.
But statistics show that same sex couples in states without gay marriage are willing to take advantage of states that do. For example, since Iowa legalized gay marriage, almost half of same sex marriages there have been for out-of-state residents.
Yet sometimes it’s too inconvenient for a couple to get married under another state’s laws. If states with gay marriage passed the laws suggested by the E-Marriage Project, then a couple in a state without gay marriage could more easily get an official stamp on their relationship, even if it’s just symbolic.
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