Nonsense. At lease in the USA, you can will your property to anyone- a charity, the gov’t even a close friend.
This site explains it pretty clearly. Right of Survivorship legal definition of Right of Survivorship
The power of the successor or successors of a deceased individual to acquire the property of that individual upon his or her death; a distinguishing feature of Joint Tenancy.
The right of survivorship determines what happens to a certain type of co-owned property after one of its owners dies. Under law there are many kinds of co-ownership, but the right of survivorship is found only in joint tenancy, a contract between two or more parties specifying their simultaneous ownership of some form of real or personal property such as a house, land, or money. In all joint tenancies, at the death of one of the joint tenants, ownership of the remaining property passes to the surviving tenants, or successors, who assert the right of survivorship. This is a powerful legal right because it takes precedence over other claims upon the property. Originally a right at Common Law, it is recognized by statute in all states.
I do think I understand his point, though. Take medical decisions for example. The OP single and so am I, and if either of us were seriously injured or ill in the hospital, like with gay couples who can’t marry, our parents would be the ones the hospital would look to for medical decisions too. I’m fairly certain that even if I was living with someone but not married to him my parents’ wishes medically would still trump my SO’s. Obviously the OP and I can both rectify this by getting married much more easily than someone who is gay can, but until that point we don’t have rights as single people that they don’t.
Too bad it doesn’t always work out that way. There are families that can afford to get expensive lawyers, and the survivor may not be able to. And if that family happens to be homophobic, that’s an aspect straight couples don’t have to deal with.
I’ve seen it happen many times.
No, my greater hope is banning government recognition of ‘marriage’ for everyone and making everyone come up with all of their own infinitely variable ‘marriage’ contracts for whatever reasons they choose. I see no reason for government recognition of spiritual issues even for straight people because even today’s government recognition of marriage is a legal partnership rather than a romantic institution and should be treated as such.
It is a business and legal partnership that is formed for whatever reasons that two or more people see fit and should be enforced the exact same way as any other contract. I don’t fully support gay marriage in general only because I don’t support boilerplate heterosexual marriages that involve the government under a faulty premise. Other than that, the are all equal to me.
That seems like a justification for doing nothing. The current situation is that straight couples can marry and gay couples cannot (in most states). That’s an inequality that exists right now and should be opposed right now.
What would happen if we followed your idea? Made the abolition of all government marriage regulations the priority and put the recognition on the back burner? You’d be pretty much guaranteeing that gay marriage equality would never happen because you’ve now put it behind a much more distant goal.
Wait, divorce? If you can’t get married you don’t need to be protected in case of divorce; if you can’t adopt children you aren’t going to have custody issues.
Straight couples who are in their second marriage do indeed have to deal with it. The surviving children of straight couples are equally able to hire expensive lawyers and contest things, and sometimes they win. I have not seen it happen many times, but I have seen it happen.
No, my idea is a truly progressive one and addresses the differences in marriage types needs and wants of all people. Shoehorning gay marriage into the currently badly flawed heterosexual model is extremely conservative by definition.
I can understand your point from a practical standpoint but not a philosophical one. We have a horribly flawed and destructive marriage model now but few people are willing to take the step for major reform. I am trying to look beyond that for the long-term for an alternative to the marriage conservatives even if they do include gay couples.
I don’t see a problem with including gay people in the currently flawed model except it is perpetuating an unsustainable institution that could be addressed to include everyone equally much better in the modern world.
The equivalent I see who be a debate over the NASA budget. We’re saying we should go back to the moon. And you’re saying we should put aside any plans to go to the moon and devote our budget to develop faster-than-light starships.
Even if we agreed with you that FTL starships would be great in theory, we aren’t going to agree to abandon our lunar missions for them. The moon is something that is attainable; FTL travel is something that will probably never happen. We shouldn’t give up reaching an obtainable goal in order to go chasing what is probably an unobtainable goal.
I’m sure Mr. Liuzza will love to hear how he doesn’t have custody issues.
If you don’t mind, I think there has been more than enough talk about gays destroying marriage, without this type of thing happening.
New to the boards, but interested in this question.
To the guy who pulled out the old saw about everyone being free marry someone of the opposite sex, the answer is I am denied the right extended to a woman to marry a man. Why should she be able to marry a man while I can not? Likewise, a lesbian is denied the right to marry a woman, as i would be able to.
My thought about government involvement in marriage is this: churches need to be stripped of their right to administer legally binding contracts. That is the business of government, and the churches should have no place in this area. Instead, government should entirely take over the institution of marriage as a legal status and as a contractual agreement between consenting adults who are eligible to enter such an agreement. Churches should be able to celebrate holy matrimony for whomever wishes to add that recognition to their marriage contract, but it should have no standing under the law. Marriage under that definition should be open to whomever wants to be married as long as they are human, of age, and eligible to enter into legally binding contracts.
Gay men (more specifically men who have sex with men regardless of how they identify their sexuality) may be deferred or rejected for blood donation depending upon where you might live. Straight men generally do not have this issue solely based upon sexual orientation.
Arguments may be made as to whether there is medical justification given that all donations are tested.
-The reason my wording has been so clear is that this was never intended, nor meant as a gay marriage debate. The fact is based on this thread, with the exception of gay marriage, no one seems able to list a single, factual, current civic statue that punishes gay men, with the exception of
1)anti-sodomy laws which have been largely ruled unconstitutional
2)blood donations (which is an area I know little about)
-Remember that private organization are allowed to discriminate. I can’t get a scholarship that is given to a woman, or a black man, nothing wrong with that.
Is there an area where sodomy laws governing private conduct between consenting adults are constitutional? I believe the answer is no, but would be happy to be corrected if there are. Otherwise, you should strike the word “largely” from that sentence.
You could argue that this rule has a disproportionate effect, but it’s not discrimination against gays. It’s a prohibition that applies to any man who has had sex with another man, even once, since 1977 (if I remember the wording from that questionnaire correctly.) That includes a lot of bisexual and heterosexual (but experimental) men, and it does not include lesbians or virginal homosexual men at all. It’s also not punishment.
Someone mentioned housing earlier: is there anywhere in the United States where it’s enforceable to ban unrelated, unmarried adults from living together? I’m certain that “family status” is not something a landlord could discriminate on here in Washington state, but I’m not sure if that’s true everywhere.
Well, yes, nations outside the USA. But still in the USA, laws against stuff like “public” sex are enforced strongly against gays, loosely vs straights, in some juristictions. Look at the Fred Willard case at the Tiki Theatre, where it’s basically a gay sex hang-out. The owner was complaining the police are always harrassing him. The LAPD are notorious for being homophobic.
Well certain Condo associations or government housing may have restrictions like that.
What you are ignoring is that there is ample historical evidence for de facto punishment of now protected classes even if there was no punishment de jure.
Why is race now a protected class? Even after civil rights legislation came about, minorities suffered from de facto discrimination and punishment. Ditto religion and women. There’s a fair amount of evidence that it still happens to this day. For example, the phrase “driving while black/brown” is pretty well known.
Even if you try to limit the discussion to “laws on the books”, the social context for the debate is going to matter.
That site explains it incorrectly. Well, actually the site mostly explains it correctly but you conflated two concepts.
Joint tenancy does not exist in Louisiana, Ohio, or Oregon. The right of survivorship exists in all states, but in some it applies only to tenancies by the entirety -those created by joint purchases by a husband and wife. In some it applies only to goods and chattels, and not to real property.
Obviously, a tenancy by the entirety is entirely unavailable to a gay couple in most cases.
As I explained already, the conveyance must state unambiguously that the parties intend to create a right of survivorship. This is why I explained that if you didn’t have a real estate attorney you probably don’t have a joint tenancy.
Really, though, the biggest issue is that a right of survivorship can only be created at the time of the conveyance. If your partner bought the property before you were together, it’s too late. The property can still be willed to you, but has to be probated just like everything else.
The issue of SSM and Priests being empowered by the state to perform marriages are two completely separable things. If a state doesn’t want SSM, then stripping Churches of the power to perform weddings won’t do one thing for legalizing SSM. In fact, it might make things worse.