Commentary: States Should Decide On Gay Marriage

[CNN] — After weeks of looking for the perfect puppy, my partner Marlon and I adopted Gia last month from the Colorado Humane Society and brought her back to Washington with us.

We wanted to make sure we adopted a small breed that wouldn’t grow too large for us to bring on board the aircraft and commute with from Colorado to Washington each week.

We finally found a beautiful 11-week-old terrier mix and adopted her on the spot. Her slightly larger and noisier two brothers were there with her, and we bid them farewell and escorted our puppy to her new home.

With the health care debate temporarily on hold until House leaders bring a new bill to the floor, members of Congress have had a chance to once again address the plethora of issues on our legislative plates. For me, this meant working on important education and environmental legislation as well as speaking in favor of LGBT equality and immigration reform, while trying to spend time with Gia during her important formative weeks.

Thirteen years ago, Congress passed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which effectively outlawed same-sex marriage. At that time, no states allowed same-sex couples to marry. It was a so-called “defense” against something that was only hypothetical at the time.

Today we have tens of thousands of married same-sex couples in this country, raising families and paying taxes in the five states that have granted them the right to marry. Both President Clinton, who signed DOMA into law in 1996, and Rep. Bob Barr, who originally authored DOMA have agreed it is time for its repeal. This law prevents states from determining what marriages to allow or not allow by second guessing them at the federal level.

To end this injustice, I co-authored legislation that would ensure that valid marriages are respected under federal law, and spoke at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol announcing the bill’s introduction this week.

The Respect for Marriage Act will provide couples with much-needed certainty that their lawful marriages will be honored under federal law and that they will have the same access to federal responsibilities and rights as all other married couples.

The Respect for Marriage Act would not tell any state who can marry or how married couples must be treated for purposes of state law, and would not obligate any person, church, city or state to celebrate or license a marriage of two people of the same sex.

It would merely restore the approach historically taken by states of determining, under principles of comity and full faith and credit, whether to honor a couple’s marriage for purposes of state law. Churches should be able to decide what kinds of unions are sanctified by their denomination, but not what kinds of unions are accepted in the civil arena. As an example, the Catholic Church will not remarry a divorced person (without an “annulment”), but divorced men and women are allowed to remarry under civil law.

No one should be denied the opportunity to choose his or her spouse. It is a basic human right and deeply personal decision. Throughout history, we have only moved forward when society has distinguished between traditional values and valueless traditions.

The so-called Defense of Marriage Act is a valueless tradition that, like laws against interracial marriage that were finally overturned by the Supreme Court in 1967, undermines the spirit of love and commitment that couples share and sends the wrong message to society.

It is time for its repeal. DOMA is out of date and out of touch with the heart of the American people. It is causing these same-sex couples and families serious and lasting harm and it is time for its repeal.

Immediately following the DOMA repeal press conference, I switched gears, put on my yarmulke, and took part in an interfaith prayer vigil to end the hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric that been heard on the nation’s air waves and, sadly, even spread to halls of Congress. [READ MORE]

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jared Polis. Check out more from CNN and it’s “Freshman Year” series at CNN.com.