BILL NUMBER: AJR 19INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Assembly Members Brownley and Feuer (Principal coauthor: Senator Leno) (Coauthors: Assembly Members Ammiano, Ma, and John A. Perez) (Coauthor: Senator Kehoe) MAY 18, 2009 Relative to marriage. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AJR 19, as introduced, Brownley. Marriage. This measure would call upon the Congress and the President of the United States to repeal the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act. Fiscal committee: no. WHEREAS, Thousands of same-sex couples in California were legally married following the California Supreme Court's May 2008 decision in In re Marriage Cases, prior to the passage of the discriminatory Proposition 8, which purported to prospectively eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in this state; and WHEREAS, The Defense of Marriage Act is a federal law passed on September 21, 1996, and codified at Section 7 of Title 1 and Section 1738C of Title 28 of the United States Code; and WHEREAS, The Defense of Marriage Act provides that the United States government will not recognize or give effect to marriages between persons of the same sex for purposes of federal law; and WHEREAS, The Defense of Marriage Act excludes same-sex couples who are legally married in California from accessing the more than 1,000 federal rights and benefits that are afforded to opposite-sex spouses; and WHEREAS, Among the critical rights and benefits that federal law provides to protect couples and families are the right to sponsor a spouse for immigration benefits, the right to access Social Security survivors benefits, the right to receive health insurance from a federal employee spouse, the right to file federal income taxes jointly, and hundreds of other crucial protections; and WHEREAS, Among other discriminatory harms, because of the Defense of Marriage Act, workers in California must pay federal income taxes on the value of health benefits provided by an employer to the same-sex spouse of an employee, while health benefits provided to different-sex spouses are not taxed, and this discrimination results in serious financial detriment to many same-sex couples and their families in California; and WHEREAS, The Defense of Marriage Act provides that no state is required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other state respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of the other state or a right or claim arising from that relationship; and WHEREAS, The Defense of Marriage Act, therefore, authorizes other states to discriminate against same-sex couples who are legally married in California by refusing to recognize or protect their relationships when they travel outside of California; and WHEREAS, The Defense of Marriage Act causes significant harm and unfairly discriminates against committed same-sex couples and their families; now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature calls upon the Congress and the President of the United States to repeal the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act; and be it further Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, to each Senator and Representative in the Congress of the United States, and to the presiding officer of each house of each state legislature of the several states.