Why are people so angry about the fact that gay marriages are banned in many states? I admit it shows an embarassing, intolerant side of us americans, but what exactly are gay people losing by not being allowed to marry? From what I can tell they lose certain economic benefits, and the judicial system is not involved in their union, but are these things really that important? Can’t an independent contract be drawn up instead of relying on judicial marriage laws? And gays can still live together, so why is everyone so upset? If laws were passed banning gay relationships that would be offensive and evil but banning gay marriages just means that the government does not recognize gay unions. Why is that such a horrible thing?
Why is it horrible that my state decided an entire group of citizens not only can’t have the same rights as everyone else, but by golly will never be able to even ask for those rights on a future ballot?
Why is it a bad thing that to have the same next-of-kin rights, property sharing, taxation, medical decisions, pension benefits…ahhh, nevermind.
Go into detail about these rights. Are there other ways for gay people to get these rights?
Ok, I’m so not the authority on the topic but I can explain some of what seems obvious to me I suppose.
Take property rights, fr’instance. On the title of my home it says “Queen Tonya, a single woman, owns blah blah.” Why does it specify that I’m single? Because my estate would automatically go to my spouse in the event of my death, in my state anyway. Say I was a bajillionaire who married a gold-digging putz 2 weeks before my death from Alzheimers, yep the gold-digging putz then has more rights than my grown children or grandchildren simply because we were married at the time of my death. This can be changed with a will, naturally, but the default setting is that spouses are entitled to half and inherit first, right?
Now, say I’m a lesbian, but my state and country don’t allow me to marry, so my title still says “QT, a single woman” right? So the partner that I unlawfully shacked up with for my entire adult life, who paid for the property in part or full, has zero rights to said property upon my death. Random great-nephew can show up and play probate polka and be awarded my estate, kicking my chosen partner of X years out of their family home and onto the street without the proverbial pot to piss in. Again, this can be changed with a probate-proof will, I can pay lawyers to file various documents on our behalf but if I’m too poor to do so, or ignorant of the specifics of the law, zippity doo dah, my partner’s screwed.
Yes, I’m simplifying and don’t know all the legal terminology, but it seems an obvious distinction to me. You and You, entitled to be married and by default share in one another’s property, but you and you? Nope, sorry, buh bye.
Why should gays have to seek expensive alternative ways to get the same rights as hetero’s?
A number of those states were also banning any form of civil union, which would pretty much rule that out.
There are a mind-boggling number of rights accorded by marriage, which most straights take for granted. Like the right to have your spouse covered by your health insurance. The right to see your spouse in the hospital and make decisions about his/her health care - if you aren’t married, it’ll probably be the person’s parents who make the decisions. The right to inheritance of their property. Being able to file taxes as a married couple. Mundane stuff like getting cheaper “family” memberships in health clubs and other places, rather than paying more for two “single” memberships. Someone tabulated a list on the web somewhere (it was linked to here before, I know), and it was over 100 different things that marriage involves/affects, and quite a few of those things - right to health insurance, for starters - can’t just be covered by a contract between the two people.
People who are against marriage for gays and lesbians talk about how it’s a “holy” thing, etc. - if it’s a holy arrangement, why is a license from a county courthouse required for a marriage? Why can you get married without any kind of priest/church involvement? Why can Satanists and pagans get hitched - as long as they’re straight? At its basis as we practice it, it is a matter of the government. By denying gays/lesbians the right to wed, we are discriminating. It wasn’t so long ago that “miscegenation” (marriage between different races) was forbidden in parts of the US, and people even trotted out verses from the Bible to support their claims then. Hopefully it will be seen how discriminatory and immoral it is to try to limit marriage to heterosexuals only.
There have been quite a few threads on the subject of rights and privileges conveyed by marriage as it relates to the gay marriage question. Esprix, Otto, and Homebrew have all linked to one or another supposedly comprehensive list of such rights. Perhaps one of them or another gay member will dredge up that link; for obvious reasons, I didn’t bother bookmarking it. Or you might give the hamsters a workout and search for it.
In short –
[ul][li]A few of those rights can be conveyed between the partners to an extralegal gay marriage by simple contract.[/li][li]Some of them can be conveyed by complex legal paperwork: durable powers of attorney, living wills, etc.[/li][li]Some of them are expressly forbidden in some if not all states to persons not married to each other.[/li][li]All of them can be ignored by a court when it finds the relationship created by them to be “against public policy.” (Ask Dewey or Bricker to define that in this context; they’re in a better mood than I am right now.)[/ul][/li]
You may also note some horror stories, like the gay couple that thought they owned a house together – until one of them died and the family threw the other one out; like the woman who died in an ICU wishing to see her life-partner, who was forbidden to enter by the legal next of kin. Somebody recently told the story of his gay uncles – uncle by blood and his life partner, accepted by his family but rejected by the partner’s family – where the partner outlived the relative-by-blood and the family who had disowned him took and sold all the poster’s family’s heirlooms that had passed to the uncle-by-blood and then to his partner.
Over 1000. 1049, to be exact.
That’s a link to a PDF, btw. Sorry.
Here’s a start on the list of rights. I’m too numb right now to expand on this, but I’m certain someone else will come along to do so.
Discrimination on the basis of sex.
In Canada, our Constitution protects against discrimination by the Government on the basis of sex. Sexual orientation has been found by arious Canadian courts to be analgous to sex. That has cleared the way for same sex marriage in Canada.
Much of the USA has gone in the opposite direction, and actively prohbited same sex marriage.
Which country do you want to live in? One that discriminates on the basis of sex, or one that does not?
These are the final words written by Conrad Spicehandler to John Langan, the man he loved and had made a life with for over a decade, before Conrad was taken for a surgery from which he did not awaken. The hospital that killed Conrad holds the position that because the two were not legally married, it owes John no more to compensate him for his loss than it would any stranger on the street.
Read those words and ask me again why being denied the right to marry is a horrible thing. I dare you.
I made this post because I did not understand the intrincities of what rights homosexuals were deprived of due to bannings on gay marriages and what injustices they had to go through. Now that i’ve seen these posts I realize that the rights were alot more involved and necessary than I thought. I thought the rights enabled by marriage were largely about taxation benefits.
Then there’s also the whole “separation of church and state” thing that the US supposedly believes in, based on the constitution.
EVERY ad I heard for the ban on gay marriage was based on religious grounds–“God dictates that marriage is a union between one man and one woman”. If that doesn’t violate the first amendment, I don’t know what does.
The prohibition on gay marriage is purely religious in nature. While I am not gay, I would be extremely unhappy if the one person I chose to live with For Life had no say in how I would be treated in a hospital, had no visitation rights as I lay on my death bed, and could not legally make decisions about how I chose to die.
I am also very spiritual, though, and I simply cannot believe that my God would prevent two people from sharing love with each other simply because of gender issues.
Maybe I would feel differently if marriage were really revered as a sacred institution in this country, but with the divorce rate as high as it is, I just don’t see that marriage is anything but a legal convenience for both parties. As such, the convenience should be available to any two people who choose to devote their lives to each other, just like anyone should be able to use the conveniences of a public drinking fountain or restroom regardless of skin color.
If marriage is a spiritual matter, then the government shouldn’t have anything to do with it at all. If it is not a spiritual matter, then why should religious beliefs play a role in determining who is allowed to get married??
Until last year, when the “marriage penalty” tax was undone, there wasn’t even a benefit in taxation to getting married. The combined taxes of two married people were actually higher than if the two people–with the same incomes–were single and paying taxes separately.
One good thing that the Bush administration did was to eliminate the “marriage tax” by increasing the tax credit for married couples to the same rate as two single taxpayers paying separately.
In other words, taxation benefits are no reason to get married, whether you are straight or gay.
If you are in a state that had a gay marriage ban on the ballot yesterday, I sincerely hope that you voted against it…
For general categories, marriage affects taxation benefits and other government benefits, employment benefits including pension and medical benefits, survivorship benefits and inheritance rights, substitute health decisions, property rights upon division upon relationship breakdown, support rights, custody rights including parental rights with respect to a child’s health and education, access rights, and immigration rights.
I expect there are more, but then that’s part of the problem. Nothing short of marriage will give all the rights as marriage. If same sex union was defined as equivalent to marriage by all levels of government, and if all levels of government passed legislation forcing people, non-governmental organizations and corporations, and the governments themselves to ensure the same protection of rights to same sex unions as to marriages, then many of the practical obstacles would be overcome, but in reality such over-arching legislation will never happen, and even if it did, the very essence of marriage as marriage would still be denied to people who would be limited to same sex union. It really comes down to discrimination.
Kiminy, I’m a Canadian, so I have only a dim awareness of US tax law. Up here we have capital gains taxes that are triggered when assets are sold or transferred, but which can often be avoided if the transfer is made to a spouse. Is there such a thing in the US?
I’m not the one to ask. I fill out the tax forms for me and DH every year on a regular basis, and as an average citizen with very little in the way of capital gains taxes, all I know is that the tax credit was significantly less for married couples than it was for two single people filing separately. For taxes for 2003, though, the government made it equal, so that two married people could claim the same amount of tax credit as two unmarried persons could claim.
I do pay some capital gains taxes, but I am the only holder of the assets since they are entirely in my name, and it’s only on a modest amount of money that my grandfather left to me when he died. If I were to die without a will, the government would take a percentage of that money (as inheritance tax) before passing the rest onto my spouse. If I were not legally married, that money would go to my children, or to my parents if I had no children.
The few assets I have sold from that estate have been for reasons both DH and I have agreed on, like putting a down payment on a house. Our financial managers have not told us of any advantage of my giving the money to my spouse first, before he passes it on to other creditors. (DH and I are looking into making the account a joint account, to avoid or reduce probate at the very least, so any advice to the contrary would be appreciated, BTW.)
I admit complete ignorance in these areas, but it seems to me that the average US citizen generally did not have capital gains in amounts that could offset the “marriage tax.”
I lived in France for several years, and the people I talked to there were appalled by the idea that married couples had to pay more federal taxes than unmarried people.
My Uncle has spent a couple years overseas working. During this time, he fell in love with a nice young man. They make a great couple and are inseperable.
My Uncle’s assignment ends in three days. He’s tried desperately to get a visa for his boyfriend, but because of the country involved and new restrictions on visas, that is almost impossible. He can’t even get a visitor’s visa. There is no hope.
Staying in that country is impossible. Their relationship is punishable by a decade in jail.
My dear Uncle will have to say goodbye to his boyfriend (a guy a consider to be a close friend and who I would dearly love to see in the states where he could have a life not restricted by his class background) and will probably never see him again.
If they were a man and a woman, they would get married. It’d be no problem. My Uncle who has spent his life looking for love could be with the guy he finally found that with.
It makes me want to cry.
Two friends of mine are a well-to-do lesbian couple who work and live together. Because their finances are complex and interwoven and both have families who would not hesitate to screw the surviving partner out of her share in the incident of a sudden death or incapacitation, they had their attorneys draft a series of legal documents that grant as many of the same rights of marriage as can be legally conveyed. (Some of course cannot be legally conveyed- the right not to testify against a spouse in court, the right to draw social security on a partner’s account if their income was higher, military benefits, etc.).
The cost of the legal documents: just under $5,000
The cost of the wedding license that would do the same things and many more: $35
I’ve stayed away from gay marriage threads for a long time, but since I’ll be legally marrying my same-sex partner in a little over two weeks, I guess I should say something.
True, it would be a huge and costly undertaking to go through other channels to be afforded the rights and legal protection automatically granted upon marriage. (Let’s not forget the legal obligations of marriage. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops.) In one step, it’s all taken care of.
We’ve had civil unions here in Quebec for four of five years, and AFAIK civil union ceremonies can be performed by a member of the clergy, not just a judge, a justice of the peace, and so on. But it’s still not the same and not equal. IIRC, at least here, there are some legal differences between marriage and a civil union. (Perhaps matt_mcl, who knows more about this kind of stuff, can fill you in, or correct me if I’m wrong.)
One of the reasons we’re getting married by a minister of the United Church is because jeremy evil is quite religious. He’s Catholic, but obviously no Catholic priest who wants to keep his job will perform the ceremony, in spite of his beliefs. (We know that the priest of Jeremy’s parish - the nice one - supports gay marriage, but his hands are tied.) I’m not religious but very spiritual, which I know is a cliché of sorts, but upon much reflection I’ve realized that I want our union blessed in a sacred space, not rubber-stamped in a sterile courtroom. And so that’s how it’s going to be: in a church, performed by a clergywoman.
I believe those who would ban same-sex marriage while allowing same-sex civil unions are essentially fearful and insecure, worried that by affording gays and lesbians the absolute same rights they enjoy and under the same name - marriage - they would somehow lose the upper hand, in other words, power.