Sua, curiosity overwhelms me. Supposing I were the sort of legal geek I am, and in addition gay and in a committed relationship – are you saying that nowhere in America (save Vermont through the civil union provisions) could I legally contract with my life partner to hold property in tenancy by the entireties? I had been under the (mistaken?) impression that New York law regarded the default – unspecified – form of ownership where two parties share an estate as joint tenancy outside marriage and tenancy by the entireties within marriage, but that two persons could opt to hold joint, in common, or by the entireties tenancy by so specifying in the deed.
idea -
gay marriage proponents note the civil and legal benefits conferred by marriage. That’s because various laws & corporate policies apply specifically to spouses.
so the main approach has been to get these benefits by legally becoming a spouse.
but you could work it from the other end. Hospitals (I think) can set their own policy for who visits a patient in the ICU. Could not hospitals begin treating domestic partners the same as spouses regarding visitation? or even for decision making (not sure, the state may have a say here). How about insurance companies?
it seems to me that activists could lobby those entities, and governments to amend those 1,000(?) rules to apply to domestic partners as well. It wouldn’t be a complete solution by any means, but it would incrementally help their cause and, in the absense of true marital status, get some of those benefits where they’re needed.
I’m aware of this occuring in some employment benefits applying to DP’s. Is it happening elsewhere?
You’ve just hit the most contentious problem in this issue, at least inside the queer community – the word “marriage.”
I don’t think anyone in the community thinks, for example, that someone’s lover from another country should get deported, or that someone shouldn’t be able visit their spouse in the hospital.
The real split comes when you ask whether we just want the rights, or do we want the word and the symbols. Some of us, myself included, don’t care if the state calls it a “marriage” or a “domestic partnership,” as long as we’re equal.
But there are people who see anything less than the word “marriage” as a sell-out, an unacceptable compromise, and won’t be happy until we have it.
As different countries get closer to accepting “domestic partnership” – and most first-world Western countries either have it or are looking into it – the divide between the “marriage is just semantics” crowd and the “domestic partnership is a sell-out” crowd seems to be getting worse.
If that was addressed to the various proposals of a full-rights Civil Union – well, if as was stated in my take on the issue, “sacramental” marriage is stripped of all preferential treatment, then indeed what will legally exist for the State will be just Civil Union, and it will apply to everyone. “Marriage” will just designate a particular ceremonial variant, with no difference in actual legal effect.
Well, I still think the state should stay out of it.
That said, as long as all domestic partnerships (m/f, m/m, f/f) are recognized by the state as Civil Unions, and Marriage is left to the churches - it’s up to the particular denomination what they will and will not sanctify - then I agree.
Guess I’ll just have to answer all of your questions for Sua, eh Polycarp? 
Even if you live in one of the few states that recognize tenancy by the entireties, a gay couple could not contract for its benefits because they are reserved exclusively for married couples.
Just as a variation on the general theme…two of my best friends got hitched in San Francisco in a completely legal lesbian wedding ceremony. It can happen !
Unfortunately, it was at the French Consulate and they can’t live in the US as a married couple despite one of them being American. But what the hey, lets work on the Death Penalty first…
Actually, that wasn’t at all clear. What I meant to say was:
Despite being married to an American (under French Law), the Frenchwoman can’t stay in the US beyond her Visa expiry date so the married couple have to go overseas.
Ah, let’s not beat around the bush. There are a lot of people, religious and non, who like to group homosexuals together (mostly gay men) as enormous sluts, the cause of AIDS, etc. If married men and women start sprouting up in their neighbourhoods with picket fences and lovely homes and kids, and perhaps actually manage to bring the divorce rate down from 50%, there will be some very shaken squares.
Couple of points:
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Re the “abolish marriage as a legal concept” thing: The law is not, IMHO, an abstract structure of “how the world ought to be” but a means by which human beings living in a society can regulate their interrelationships in a way that generally seems fair to the majority of them. Not having a means by which money, goods, and property can be properly devoted to the survival of the people to whom the individual to whom they belong has affection or responsibility has generally worked harm and unfairness to such people. If you wish to establish a household in which four men, three women, one sheep of each sex, and a warthog consider themselves “married” and sleep together, that’s your business. Where the law gets (or should get) involved is if the men decide to run off to Provincetown and leave the children without support, or if the warthog dies, to decide who inherits its mudhole.
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Justin, I’ve noted you restating your original view a couple of times, but nothing recently. Have you come to see the sense in the points advanced by those of us who have argued for allowing gay marriage, or, alternatively, would you please answer my question of several posts back on what grounds, other than religious belief or the theory of marriage as for the begetting of children and no other reason, there might be for sticking strictly to heterosexual monogamy? (If one or both of those is your reason, why should society buy them as good reasons for doing so?)
SSM is not legal in France. France passed within the last year or two a domestic partners-type law that allows same-sex couples to register and which conveys some of the rights of marriage onto such couples, but it is not full-blown marriage. I believe Holland and the Netherlands are the only two countries in the world which have legal same-sex marriage (and even call it “marriage” without the Lord God smiting the general populace or even Parliament), and I think there are still restrictions on such things as adopting children and lesbian couples accessing artificial insemination that don’t apply to mixed-sex couples.
PolyCarp,
I have not posted cause I don’t have anything more to say. I have stated my position and restated it. I not trying to convince or persuade anybody. I believe that is the definition (male and female) and anything else is something else completely. And calling it a Marriage, demeans the sacred institution. If someone wants to join into a union with an animal, sibling, or someone of the same gender then that is something else completely.
Catholics believe it is a special sacrament and they are serious about it. A child is a special gift from God. Yes it is spiritual. It’s a quantum leap from discussing a biological function to ensure the survival of a species. That is where I get my definition. Sorry but thats it. And my point here is that where a lot of the problem is rooted. A lot of people have the church, wedding bells, first house, children,… associated with marriage.
Agreed, it’s not the same – yet. There are plans mooted to convey greater equivalence.
The issue I posted on was Residency. You may in France, assuming the correct procedures have been followed, continue to live with your partner if ‘married’ under French ‘gay law’ notwithstanding nationality i.e. a gay American, ‘married’ under French law may live in France but a ‘married’ gay French person may not continue to live in the US if ‘married’ to an American because the same Visa restrictions apply as if they were not ‘married’. Phew…did that make sense…
justinh,
I think I understand where you are coming from, but just for clarification:
Let’s say you have a co-worker (male, straight) who is married. However, your co-worker is an atheist - and never participated in a sacremental marriage - his marriage was done by a JP in a courthouse. Moreover (and this has nothing to do with his spiritual beliefs or lack thereof), his marriage doesn’t seem to be one of soulmates. Granted, from the outside its hard to judge anyone’s marriage, but he and his wife constantly snipe at one another. They don’t seem to have much in common. They have no children and will never have children due to some health issues. And, you suspect one or both parties is not faithful to the other. Moreover, you don’t find his wife in the least bit attractive (bad teeth, you hate bad teeth, and frizzy red hair you find completely unappealing) and can’t see why anyone would pursue a physical relationship with her.
In your eyes, are they married? Why or why not?
JustinH answered me honestly, including the following:
I can respect that. I agree that church marriage is a sacrament through which God conveys a special grace on the couple covenanting before him. And that our culture has surrounded this sacred rite with a plethora of special customs which set it apart.
Right there may be the problem. In general, IMHO, persons with the philosophy that marriage is God-given and holy have in their minds classified homosexuals as not inclined to seek the holy and to campily deface it by mockery. They would see gay marriage as a mockery on it, not as a commitment entered into solemnly with the intent of a covenant relationship before God.
I would trust that the majority of us here would see at least some of our gay contingent as taking such a relationship seriously, and intending the sort of commitment implied in the last clause of the previous paragraph.
Beyond that, however, lies the question of marriage as a civil institution. To what extent do people like Justin and myself, who see it as a serious commitment vowed before God, have any right to expect their views on marriage to apply to, e.g., Spiritus Mundi and Gaudere, both single atheists (Gaudere at least; I think Spiritus has mentioned being single, which is why I used him for the male half of this example), if they should meet each other, become attracted to each other to the point they would be inclined to enter into a marriage.
Or if the couple should be Otto and JayJay? (Never mind that JayJay is polyamorous; that just adds an unnecessary complication to the question, and the same might be true for a heterosexual relationship with a polyamorous member.)
Aren’t they the same country? 
Sorry. I meant Denmark and Netherlands.
I think I’d have to meet JayJay before I knew what kind of couple we’d make. JayJay, call me!
Let me take a brief stab at explaining why society has supported 1 male- 1 female marriages (MFM) but not same sex arrangements (SSA).
(As an aside, making one support MFM without relying on religious or moral arguments is like trying to eat without using food.)
The principal benefits to society at large of MFM are most obvious in the old-fashioned model of marriage (OFM) wherein the man is the principal breadwinner and the woman is the principal child raiser. These benefits are superfluous in a SSA, where both parties are equally capable of earning income and raising children is not typically part of the relationship.
In an OFM MFM, marriage laws protect the mother and the children, those who are economically at great risk if the principal breadwinner leaves or dies. Stay at home mothers contribute mightily to society’s future by raising children and therefore are justified in obtaining society’s support through marriage laws. The typical stay at home gay does not make such a similar contribution to society and therefore has no claim on society’s economic support through marriage or intestacy laws.
Divorce and intestate succession laws are society’s way of paying back stay at home moms. If the marriage ended because the male took up with another female, the mother would be legally entitled to alimony, a fair division of property, and money for child support. If the marriage ended at the death of the male and he died without a will or died with a will that disinherited the mother, the mother would be legally entitled to a certain portion of the property and the children would be entitled to a certain portion of the property. Such protections are unnecessary in a typical SSA, where there is not the same inherent economic disparity between the two people in the couple that there is in an OFM MFM. The stay at home mother couldn’t get a good job with employee fringe benefits and therefore needed society’s protection; a stay at home gay has no such inherent disadvantages or claim on society’s support, and is just lazy and only has to get a job in order to protect himself or herself economically.
The same logic applies to employer fringe benefits. In an OFM MFM the mother and children’s health insurance and retirement benefits are tied to the male. If there were not laws such as ERISA which prevent a male from naming someone other than his spouse as his beneficiary than many mothers would be effectively disinherited when the male named his mistress as his beneficiary. There is not that same level of protection needed in an SSA, where both parties can freely and easily protect themselves by obtaining jobs with their own retirement benefits.
Ending a OFM MFM is serious enough so that even in this age of no-fault divorce when the parties agree on the amount of alimony, disposition of property, on child visitation and child support issue, society requires that the parties appear before a court judge who reviews the terms of the marriage’s dissolution. Society as a whole has no such similar automatic stake when a SSA ends. If the participants in a SSA have a disagreement about the disposition of their joint property then the courts are open to them, but the courts are invoked only when there is a problem that the principals cannot work out. This benefits society’s interest in conserving judicial resources, so that every time two homosexuals breakup there doesn’t have to be a court case. I hear Sua’s point about about having to draft contracts and such for gays that aren’t necessary for heterosexuals, however, I think that’s a red herring because such contracts - called prenuptual agreements - are very common among straight people too.
Society further benefits by recognizing MFMs just because heterosexual relationships are so much more popular and common than SSAs. MFMs promote efficiency by allowing those who are married to concentrate their energies on activities other than looking for a mate, and by notifying those who are still looking as to those who are now off the market. SSAs are just a fraction of the population at large, and the bulk of the heterosexual population has no interest in expending scarce resources in regulating the homosexual minorities’ interactions or relationships.
Certainly our society has changed so that the OFM MFM is not as typical as it once was, however, the reasoning behind extending the protections afforded spouses in marriage, namely the stay at home married mother’s economic disadvantages, simply do not exist in a typical SSA. Even without marriage, the people involved in an SSA are lawfully capable of arranging their own affairs and of supporting themselves without the necessary intervention of the state. If it is true that the society that governs best, governs least, then there is no need for society to intervene is SSAs even today.
As long as you understand that this has not always, historically, been the case.
What does that tell you, then? :rolleyes:
Cite, please, particularly on the raising children part of this assumption.
Just for the record, it seems quite a jump to automatically assume that both parties are equally capable of earning income, and that the SSC will not be raising children - adopted or biological from a previous relationship.
What about the gay person who has accepted responsibility for taking care of all the neighborhood children while their parents (male and female) are still at work?
Cite, please.
You’re talking about the hypothetical “Ozzie and Harriet” nuclear family, which only really sprang into existance post WWII. Prior to that women could (and did) hold jobs. So it could easily be argued that the “stay at home mom” is also “lazy” and can get a job to protect their economic interests.
You’re also not taking into account children that have been raised within SSAs (it happens, after all), SSAs where one or ther other partner is significantly handicapped (which also occurs in MFM, and the handicap can apply to the male partner as well as the female).
Um, cite? How often does/did this happen that it’s really necessary? And consider that this also creates problems in the other direction, as in the case of my roommate whose insurance company will not remove her ex-husband as her primary beneficiary despite her having given them evidence of her divorce.
Again, this may have been true at one point, but now any couple of any combination of genders can have two jobs, two sources of income, and two retirement benefits.
No, the agreements drawn up between two members of an SSA are not the equivalent of a pre-nup. Pre-nups are usually put in place to prevent one or the other members of the relationship from exercising his/her right to some portion of the marriage contract (usually involving money).
The contracts that Sua was talking about are done not to prevent behaviour, but to allow the partners to live as close to marriage as possible.
:rolleyes:
SSAs serve the exact same, in some ways as necessary, purpose.
Bull. If I settle down next week with the woman of my dreams, and we, say, buy a house together, one or the other of us will be considered the primary homeowner of that house. Say it’s me. Say I die. My parents, should they be so cold-hearted, could then begin eviction proceedings on my widow, on the house we owned jointly.
Similarly, should I fall into a coma, those same people (my parents, or my sister should they have passed away) would be allowed to see me in the hospital. My lover would not - unless they allowed her access.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by SisterCoyote *
**
My mother is a lesbian. She’s been with her partner/girlfriend/wife/whatever (they haven’t adopted any particular titles and I feel ridiculous calling them by anything other than their names - so, she’s “R” from now on) for 6 or 7 years.
My father has since remarried. The relationship between R. and my mother is just as “real” as the one between my father and step-mother. (IMNSHO, the R./Mother relationship is much better than the Father/Step-mother relationship, but that’s neither here nor there. We all know plenty of people with crappy marriages.)
If my mother gets into a car accident, nobody will be trying to notify R. If my mother is in a coma, R. isn’t entitled to make medical decisions. When I was in high school, it was a big ordeal for R. to pick me up from school for a dentist appointment, sign permission slips and perform the functions many step-parents perform when their spouse is unavailable.
These are just the issues that spring to mind from my own situation.
You’d have to be fairly sheltered to not realize that gays can have stable relationships like their heterosexual neighbors. With few exceptions, any male and female with pulses can get married, for whatever reason. Without a doubt, many of those marriages are terrible mistakes, but nobody wants to deny them the right to marry.