South Carolina reafirms it does not recognize same sex marriages

In a draft ruling today, the state of South Carolina reaffirmed it’s intention to not recognize same sex marriages.  The preliminary draft ruling can be found here (PDF).

A marriage between one man and one woman is the only lawful domestic union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.

Since South Carolina tax calculations begin with federal taxable income, same sex spouses are presented with a bit of a dilemma when filing the state return. The state proceeds to provide guidance to those persons who qualify to file jointly for federal purposes but cannot file a joint South Carolina return.

Basically those persons are instructed to file the federal tax return in any way for which they are eligible to file for federal purposes, for example married filing jointly.  Then those persons are instructed to create a second pro forma federal tax return to calculate each spouses share of income and deductions.  This second pro forma return will not be filed with the federal government, but instead will be attached to the state return or retained as a worksheet to substantiate the entries on the state return.

Which all seems reasonably straight forward given the circumstances.

The question I have is how can the state survive a challenge to the constitutionality of this particular provision in light of the fact that the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited same sex marriages at the federal level, has fallen to constitutional defeat?

I guess we will all just have to stay tuned to find out.