Massachusetts Amendment and Contracts Clause

[Volokh, Eugene]

	Unless I'm mistaken, this issue came up in the 1800s, when
divorce laws were liberalized.  Such liberalization does quite literally
impair the obligation of the marriage contract; but I don't believe it
was struck down on Contracts Clause grounds.  The answer, unless I'm
mistaken, is that marriage is a special type of contract to which the
Contracts Clause doesn't apply -- that may or may not be a satisfying
conclusion, but I think it has to apply equally to liberalization of
divorce laws and to cancellation of same-sex marriages.

	Eugene Volokh

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Howard H. Schweber [mailto:schweber at polisci.wisc.edu] 
> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 1:09 PM
> To: Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
> Subject: Massachusetts Amendment
> 
> 
> One possibility is that Massachusetts will pass a state 
> constitutional 
> amendment that will undo the effect of same-sex marriages 
> performed in the 
> interim (presumably by converting those marriages to civil 
> unions).  Everything else aside, why is this not a problem from the 
> perspective of the Contracts Clause?
> 
> Howard Schweber
> Dept. of Poli. Sci.
> Univ. Wisconsin-Madison
> 
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