Cost of fundamental human rights: priceless.
For everything else, there’s MasterCard®. 
Cost of fundamental human rights: priceless.
For everything else, there’s MasterCard®.
Oops. Pre-wedding jitters. 
In the U.S., there is an unlimited estate tax exemption for transfers to a spouse. In other words, if a person dies, that person may pass his or her entire estate to his or her spouse without paying any estate tax.
For non-spousal transfers, there is a credit currently allowing $1.5 million in transfers (including most transfers during life and upon death) to be made estate tax free, but transfers above that amount (other than those to charity) will incur estate tax liability.
[Obviously this is a drastic oversimplification and if you have questions about your own situation, please see a tax professional. Also this is only for federal estate taxation, and state inheritance taxes likely are different.]
Because any type of separation implies that you are -not- equal.
How bout that? How 'bout that for logic? What if we just asked all gay people to ride in the back of the bus? What do they have to complain about? They can still ride the bus! Is that such a horrible thing?
I woke up yesterday -knowing- that I was a 2nd class citizen. I’m not even married–but feeling like I never -can- be is what hurts most.
And I apologize in advance if my tone seems rather snippy.
But if you were a young man who suddenly felt like you were living in a different world, you’d probably be, too.
Check out that location in the upper right–Utah is me, babe. It’s really difficult for me these past couple days to go to work and school with a straight face knowing that over 60 percent of the people around me think I’m beneath them on some level.
Contracts create legal rights between the parties only; they don’t create legal rights that are binding on anyone else, who aren’t parties to the contract:
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like employers (who run pension plans and other benefits);
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hospitals (who set the rules allowings spouses to visit a sick spouse, and for other scary things like consenting to medical procedures when the spouse is injured and unable to consent);
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governments (who set the rules for a raft of stuff, like inheritance laws, spousal support laws, child support laws, matrimonial property laws, and on, and on)
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other family members, who may not recognise or approve of a same-sex union and try to contest a will, block one partner from visting the other in hospital, etc.
Marriage is a civil status that confers an entire bundle of legal rights and obligations, both for the parties to the marriage, and other people and governments who deal with them. A private contract simply doesn’t have the same effect as marital status.
That and it’s as scary as hell that discrimination is being codified into state constitutions. It could open some seriously scary doors!
The other thing was particularly devastating was the sheer numbers. I know that there are a lot of intolerant people who hate me. But seeing the actual numbers was a devastating blow.
My relationship doesn’t affect anyone else but me and my partner.
Imagine the outcry there would have been if the issue was banning something like marriages between racially mixed couples. It never would have made it to the ballot.
We didn’t have that on the ballot in Indiana. If we did I would’ve voted against it (not that it would’ve mattered i’m sure it would’ve passed 80-20 or something) as I have been a lukewarm supporter of gay marriage since the issue started last year. But now that I’ve started this thread and seen the psychological damage these bans have done to gay people and seen the legitimate legal protections homosexuals are deprived of I am a much stronger supporter of civil unions and gay marriage. More people who condemn homosexual marriage should be exposed to the info this thread contains.
I used to be mentally ill, and if a ballot initiative banning the mentally ill from having children was passed it would really affect me psycholgoically knowing many of the people I met on the street thought that about me. I know that 50 years ago eugenics was tried and thousands of mentally ill were sterilized so its not like that is an unrealistic ballot initiative (at least not 50 years ago), so I can see your point.
And not everyone supports bans on gay marriage, I think only about 55% of people do, the other 45% want to allow it. And you also have to consider that a large number of those 55% probably don’t know any openly gay people, and probably don’t know anything about the mental and legal damage the bans do to gay people.
I don’t think what’s upsetting people is the idea that everyone supports bans on gay marriage, because nobody really believes that idea. What’s upsetting is that over half the people in the relevant states are so violently opposed to the idea of letting gay couples marry that they would vote to put a permanent ban on same-sex marriage. I know lots of people who don’t like the idea of same-sex marriage, who think homosexuality is morally wrong, but who don’t feel we should pass laws against such things. And to be honest, I thought that contingent was bigger than it apparently is. The idea that it’s not is disappointing to me. Even more disappointing to me is the idea that these people are blowing smoke up my ass, that they gleefully voted for legislating putting those queers in their place.
Yes, you can get some of the legal protections and obligations of marriage through complicated legal work. One of Dr.J’s former coworkers went through all that mess right after we got married. It cost them a grand or so apiece to get a fraction of the rights we have, and my understanding is that some of their contracts wouldn’t be recognized outside the state of North Carolina. Our marriage license cost $27, and all of our rights are recognized by any state in the union. That’s beyond fucked up, to be honest. And you know, I’m not sure that either of them has a legal leg to stand on if the other dies and the family wants different funereal arrangements. That’s something that I thought about quite a bit in the months leading up to our wedding, because I know that what his family would want to do with his remains is not what he would want, and they were his legal next of kin until we got the papers signed.
Oh and Scott_evil, congratulations. Pack in all those Bridezilla moments while you still can get by with them; once the day is over, you don’t get any more so don’t waste your opportunities. Also, remember the most important phrase you can possibly utter on the big day itself: It’s my day and I can have whatever I want. This little bit of wisdom was passed on from my best friend (okay, she was trying to sell me a $1000 wedding dress at the time, but still), and it was the running joke of the wedding. I said it approximately 70 bazillion times that day, and I kind of wish I’d said it more. It was fun.
applause
I always love how opponents of gay marriage will proclaim up and down how it’s a religious institution, but will get really huffy (to say the least) if you suggest that gov’t should stop recognizing it then.
I mean, if it’s a religious institution…
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, if the government is involved in it, they have a responsibility to make sure it’s fair.
Regarding inheritance, can’t any two people own something jointly? So couldn’t you sell half a share of all your property to your partner for a dollar?
Regarding custody, can’t you both adopt the child?
I all for gay marriage rights; I’m just curious.
As far as property goes, some states have provisions in their laws about how property is valued with the death of one of the owners. It is more advantageous to pass that property to a spouse than a non-spouse. Sure, a property owner could sell his half to his same-sex partner for a nominal sum (assuming it wasn’t viewed as a fraudulent transfer), but that doesn’t help if the partner should die suddenly or become incapacitated before this transaction takes place.
As far as adoption, many (most?) states will only allow a child to be adopted by one parent unless the parents are legally married. One half of a same-sex couple can adopt but the other half can’t unless the first half terminates his/her parental rights. This also applies to cases where the child is the biological offspring of one half of the couple. The non-bio parent can’t adopt unless the bio-parent terminates parental rights. Florida (and one other state IIRC) explicitly ban gay people from adopting and one state (I want to say Kansas but I may be wrong) won’t allow children to be placed for adoption or even foster care if there is a gay person in the same house (so a married couple with a gay child who lives with them would be barred from adopting or fostering).
The issue is not owning property jointly, but rather property division upon relationship breakdown where either the parties did not split every penny as it came in, or where one party was the breadwinner while the other was the homemaker. YMMV, but where I am (Ontario), property division upon marital breakdown is vastly different from property division upon common law relationship breakdown. The rule of thumb is that any assets or debts that either of the married persons obtained when they were together must be split equally, whereas if they did not marry neither would have much in the way of dibs on the other’s property.
For adoption, a gay couple may have to deal with institutional prejudice, statutory prohibition, or hostile judicial discretion. Have a look at Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia. For a second parent adoption, there are a raft of states that do not permit it. Here is a table that sets out where the various states stand: http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/documents/record?record=399
[slight hijack]
First, I support the right of anyone to marry anyone else as long as both are consenting adults. I believe that banning gay marriage is stupid, pointless and counter-productive. Regardless of the makeup of the Supreme Court, they HAVE to overturn the gay marriage ban as it “respects an establishment of religion”.
As to the OP, a possible way to achieve the same rights granted by marriage (this is a little convoluted). If a male gay couple and a female gay couple married each other and then entered into a contract among themselves regarding inheritance, etc., could they achieve a majority of the same rights as a traditional married couple?
[/slight hijack]
I suppose… just not in respect of the right people. It would also verge on marriage fraud.
Nope. Not even close. Even if the marriages were not void.
It is different in Saskatchewan. The Family Property Act applies to married couples, and also to common law couples (either opposite-sex or same-sex) who have been in a spousal relationship for at least two years. So the same rules would apply on break-up of either type of relationship.