First off, I'm a straight man married to an actively bisexual woman who is the absolute love of my life (on the boards as Story Archer). She has a number of gay and bi-sexual friends which means I now have a number of gay and bi-sexual friends. To a fault none of them are activist or concerned about much more than getting through life the way we all are, and none of them consider gay marriage much of an issue (including two couples who have had marriage ceremonies themselves). I'm putting those details out there just to provide context for the question and what must be my own ignorance on the subject.
My wife and I lived together for seven years before deciding to get married - we were 'there' already in our hearts and minds and never really had any intentions of doing it at all, but we weren't opposed to it either and eventually it just seemed like it was time (for the family as much as anything). We married in the bookstore where we met before a couple dozen friends and family in a non-religious ceremony. We've been married for four years this month. After we got married absolutely nothing in our lives changed, not socially, not financially, nothing.
From the outside I look at the debate over gay marriage and am in a quandary over what it is exactly that's being fought for. I am of the opinion that the word 'rights' is thrown around far too much in modern society, to the point that any privilege anyone or any group gets automatically becomes a 'right' for everyone else by default... and I'm not singling out marriage in that observation, not by a long shot.
My confusion is this: to my understanding, there are no laws against standing up in front of a group of loved ones and publically announcing your love and commitment to another person. Legal benefits of marriage all seem easily addressed in other ways (power of attorney, medical power of attorney, etc.), legal adoption of children by LGBT couples and individuals have been increasing dramatically every year... so what is it exactly being fought for? Legally fought for, I mean, since this is a legal case before the courts. I want to be able to speak intelligently on this subject, but the few LGBT friends we have just shrug when the subject comes up. I'm coming here because we clearly have an active, engaged and educated LGBT community both within Paizo and without.
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To try and sum it up as succinctly as possible:
"They have it and we want it; we don't want something like it, we want it."
After all, if everyone is equal then why not let everyone get married and not jump through hoops to have power of attorney and this, that, and the other.
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My recently-retired co-worker was a fount of information on this topic. Even though you are correct in your statement that gay couples *can* get all of the legal "rights" associated with marriage, as he put it it took him dozens of hours and thousands of dollars in attorney's fees to get it all taken care of, and even then he wasn't sure he got them all.
FINANCIAL: As soon as a couple is married, their property is "joint". Even if one of them dies unexpectedly with no will, the property goes to the spouse (after the state puts it through probate and takes its 15% cut). For gay couples, they MUST prepare wills (and preferably survivorship trusts) to accomplish the same thing.
Similarly, a married couple can file joint taxes, receive survivorship Social Security, receive a spouse's state disability, and so forth. All of those must be created as legal contracts for gay couples.
MEDICAL: A spouse may always visit an injured family member, and may make life-or-death decisions such as when to pull the plug. Again, an unmarried couple has to set up all the legal contracts before anything happens.
CHILD CARE: Ditto. If a gay couple has a child, one member must legally adopt the child. This is a bit more of a grey area, because stepchildren have different legal rights than biological children (I know because my friend remarried and adopted his stepdaughter for legal reasons), but it's still an "automatic" for marriage.
So the question is not, "Can a gay couple get all of the benefits of marriage without a legal marriage contract?", but rather, "Why should a gay couple have to pay thousands of dollars and do tons of legwork for something a 'traditional' married couple gets for free?"
EDIT: And you find out weird stuff like this long after the fact: Who knew that it wasn't until 2010 that hospitals were required to allow the patient to choose who visited, rather than the "good old fashioned" "family members only" rule. Time magazine linky.
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What you are missing is that you are moderately lucky that you never ended in the situation where legal benefits of marriage mattered: paying taxes together, being forbidden from visiting your partner on ER in hospital, battling family of your partner about inheriting the possessions you earned together with your partner but the partner's family can take away from you because its under his/her name and not yours and there is no will, benefiting from workplace health insurance plan that is restricted to family members, etc, matters of taking legal care of children of your partner, etc.
There is also an issue with the fact that there is still a lot of people who view non-married pairs as temporary relationships, not permanent ones.
Similarly, a married couple can file joint taxes, receive survivorship Social Security, receive a spouse's state disability, and so forth. All of those must be created as legal contracts for gay couples.
Uh? Joint tax filling is possible through contract? How is that even possible?
Similarly, a married couple can file joint taxes, receive survivorship Social Security, receive a spouse's state disability, and so forth. All of those must be created as legal contracts for gay couples.Uh? Joint tax filling is possible through contract? How is that even possible?
I believe you incorporate yourself or some silliness like that. I haven't done it, but maybe a fellow Paizonian knows...
...or I'll just ask my friend when he pops online. He's retired, but that doesn't keep him from pestering me at work every day. And I know he and his partner have spent tens of thousands on lawyers so their relationship was "as close to married" as they could get well before "gay marriage" became a household term...
There is also an issue with the fact that there is still a lot of people who view non-married pairs as temporary relationships, not permanent ones.
Honestly, it was this that actually spurred us (me) to decide to finally get married. My mother made the off-hand comment that she 'wished she could introduce her as her daughter-in-law rather than as her son's girlfriend', and I never wanted anyone to think that I wasn't serious enough about her to 'officially' commit.
Now having said that, the ceremony and her wearing the ring would have been adequate to serve that task whether or not ER visitation rights came with it or not... and having said that, getting legally married is the farthest thing from permanency. I know far many more divorced hetero couples than I do happily married ones.
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Pretty much what Drejk pointed out is my take on it. Which makes the controversy about it somewhat strange: the issue is changing the legal definition of marriage, not the religious or personal definitions.
Nobody's existing marriage is being changed by this at all. It's largely a legal issue.
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Honestly, it was this that actually spurred us (me) to decide to finally get married. My mother made the off-hand comment that she 'wished she could introduce her as her daughter-in-law rather than as her son's girlfriend', and I never wanted anyone to think that I wasn't serious enough about her to 'officially' commit.
Congratulations, you've just answered your question! Millions of people around the world have their mothers make that off-hand comments and never want anyone to think that they aren't serious enough about their same-sex partners to 'officially' commit. Yes, they are human beings just like you, and face dilemmas identical to straight people.
So the question is not, "Can a gay couple get all of the benefits of marriage without a legal marriage contract?", but rather, "Why should a gay couple have to pay thousands of dollars and do tons of legwork for something a 'traditional' married couple gets for free?"
So its an argument over legal convenience? It seems a great deal more... passionate... than something like that would suggest.
Just to shed more light on my perspective, I'm not opposed to some people having an easier time of things so long as I'm not by consequence forced to have a more difficult time. I don't mind someone else being taller, smarter or healthier than me - that's just the way it is some times.
However (giving a for instance), I don't like the idea that the decision to breed suddenly qualifies one for tax breaks that, presumably, I'm going to have to compensate for. I think the choice to have children should be one made with finances in mind and that the consequences of that choice should be felt by the ones actually making the choice rather than those who had no say in it, especially considering that those with children are far more likely to take advantage of tax-payer provided services anyway.
My personal stance on gay marriage issue (again, as an outsider) is the same as straight marriage - that the government should get out of the marriage business altogether. I'd rather see the taking away of all the special rules and exceptions that hetero couples receive than by necessity to expand on what is and what isn't recognized for other couples. Then all would have the same legal rights and privileges... if that were to happen, even if the LGBT community had gained nothing, would that settle the issue for them?
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From the outside I look at the debate over gay marriage and am in a quandary over what it is exactly that's being fought for. I am of the opinion that the word 'rights' is thrown around far too much in modern society, to the point that any privilege anyone or any group gets automatically becomes a 'right' for everyone else by default... and I'm not singling out marriage in that observation, not by a long shot.
Well, since this thread is about gay marriage: why shouldn't marriage as a legal right be extended to any two consenting parties?
Congratulations, you've just answered your question! Millions of people around the world have their mothers make that off-hand comments and never want anyone to think that they aren't serious enough about their same-sex partners to 'officially' commit. Yes, they are human beings just like you, and face dilemmas identical to straight people.
Honestly, it was this that actually spurred us (me) to decide to finally get married. My mother made the off-hand comment that she 'wished she could introduce her as her daughter-in-law rather than as her son's girlfriend', and I never wanted anyone to think that I wasn't serious enough about her to 'officially' commit.
Actually, the point of that statement was that it didn't require legally gaining less expensive means of getting power of attorney or more convenient access to childcare to make her request (and my inclination) come to fruition. All that it required was me standing up in front of my loved ones and before my community and formally announcing my love and commitment for her. The legal aspects were just a matter of course, and a bothersome one at that... so you kind of missed the point there, I'm afraid.
There are some loopholes that have been fixed that were major issues 10 years ago, like visiting spouses in the hospital (gay couples are legally not related, unlike a straight, married couple).
There are still major hurdles, including adoption rights (some states only one male and one female may be legal parents, so same-sex couples cannot adopt a child together.), taxes (most gay couples have to file separately- a financially crippling disadvantage), inheritance, insurance (my company refuses to cover gay married couples unless they live in a state where it's legal.) and a host of other inequalities.
The moderate consensus is that the major reason people object to Gay Marriage is because their personal religious views dictate that Gay people cannot be married under their God/religion. This simply does not make any sense in a Secular, Governmental context. Lesbians and Gays (and Bisexuals, too) are contending that there is simply no reason except for long-held fears and bias that Gays be banned from entering into a state-recognized union.
I am gay. I live in a state where it is still not legal to marry my boyfriend. Were I straight, I would not want to get married in a church anyway, so all i'd like is the basic right to be acknowledged as a human who has made a commitment- it's not that much to ask for, in my mind.
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From the outside I look at the debate over gay marriage and am in a quandary over what it is exactly that's being fought for. I am of the opinion that the word 'rights' is thrown around far too much in modern society, to the point that any privilege anyone or any group gets automatically becomes a 'right' for everyone else by default... and I'm not singling out marriage in that observation, not by a long shot.Well, since this thread is about gay marriage: why shouldn't marriage as a legal right be extended to any two consenting parties?
I think in my other post I kind of addressed my perspective on that, that as a Libertarian I'd prefer that the government get out of the marriage business altogether, that I'd rather see all of those legal exceptions and privileges removed from hetero sexual marriages than see then expanded upon for any other group.
I can only speak for myself, however, and that perspective is more of an over-reaching philosophy than a judgment on this particular situation.
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Because the state that we currently live in does not recognize our marriage, I was not able to be on my wife's health insurance.
Because I was not on my wife's health insurance, I had $20k-$30k in medical bills that were not covered on my health insurance, but would have been on hers.
Because of running up $25k in credit card bills, we came within a hair's breadth of declaring bankruptcy.
This is not an abstract issue.
It's also worth mentioning that the state I live in also prohibits any benefits for same-sex couples that are *like* marriage, so domestic partnerships are also banned. So most of the partnership-based legal contract ends-around this ban don't work either.
So the question is not, "Can a gay couple get all of the benefits of marriage without a legal marriage contract?", but rather, "Why should a gay couple have to pay thousands of dollars and do tons of legwork for something a 'traditional' married couple gets for free?"So its an argument over legal convenience? It seems a great deal more... passionate... than something like that would suggest.
Yeah... people are silly.
My personal stance on gay marriage issue (again, as an outsider) is the same as straight marriage - that the government should get out of the marriage business altogether.
Have you ever had a close family member die?
The red tape surrounding death, probate, and inheritance is monumental. I would NEVER wish it on anyone.
And we had a pair of FRIENDLY deaths where all the survivors were willing to work together to interpret the "Wills as Intended" rather than the "Wills as Written".
Get unfriendly family members involved, and it's one of the worst experiences of your life.
Until you can simplify death and taxes, I vote for legal marriages.
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Yeah, let's stop preventing those Utah gentlemen from having 6 underage wives. That will work juuuuuust fine.My personal stance on gay marriage issue (again, as an outsider) is the same as straight marriage - that the government should get out of the marriage business altogether.
Actually I'm completely in favor of polyamory as a lifestyle... and last I checked, sex with minors was still illegal regardless.
Honestly - have you ever made a post that wasn't just an excuse for snark?
Have you ever had a close family member die?
No. I've been fortunate thus far, though as I grow older that time is fast approaching.
If you can first simplify death and taxes, THEN you can remove legal marriage...
Oh, I'll be the first to say that there are much bigger issues we face, ones that affect us all rather than just individual groups, but I was recently told that that perspective was only because I had been born to 'privilege' by virtue of my heterosexuality, so I'm trying to learn what, if anything, that I'm not considering.
Congratulations, you've just answered your question! Millions of people around the world have their mothers make that off-hand comments and never want anyone to think that they aren't serious enough about their same-sex partners to 'officially' commit.
Honestly, it was this that actually spurred us (me) to decide to finally get married. My mother made the off-hand comment that she 'wished she could introduce her as her daughter-in-law rather than as her son's girlfriend', and I never wanted anyone to think that I wasn't serious enough about her to 'officially' commit.
Yours or Małgorzata's? :P
Have you ever had a close family member die?No. I've been fortunate thus far, though as I grow older that time is fast approaching.
If you can first simplify death and taxes, THEN you can remove legal marriage...Oh, I'll be the first to say that there are much bigger issues we face, ones that affect us all rather than just individual groups, but I was recently told that that perspective was only because I had been born to 'privilege' by virtue of my heterosexuality, so I'm trying to learn what, if anything, that I'm not considering.
I think you're making your position quite clear, and I appreciate it.
I'm just a bit older than you (I'd bet), and have had to deal with many of the legal "benefits" of marriage with regards to death, serious illness, inheritance, and so forth.
I like to think of marriage as a legal "bonus pack" -- it takes care of all the legal nastiness involved in death, taxes, and child care and packages it up for you in one convenient legal entity called "marriage" and you don't have to think about it (until your estate reaches a certain amount, but that's a tale for another day).
I don't care what it's called, but I would prefer that everyone in the country have the opportunity to just say, "This is my FleeberJeeber," and have all those legal rights transferred to that person. Kind of like an executor, but with a cooler name.
"Marriage" is what we use now. I'd prefer to legalize gay marriage, but if people are so opposed to it that it can't pass, let's find something that everyone can accept as a "legal stewpot" taking care of the nonsense the government inflicts on us when people are born, separate, or die...
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I'm trying to learn what, if anything, that I'm not considering.
On the one hand, I think you're underestimating what "legal convenience" actually amounts to. It has been estimate that there are something like 2000 individual legal rights that accompany a legal (heterosexual) marriage by default, many of them traditions (like spousal testimonial privilege) that date back to common law and that may not have been formalized into statute, depending upon where you live. If you assume that each right requires one document to formalize, and each document, in turn, requires an hour to prepare, that's a full-time job for a lawyer for a year to draw up an equivalent of marriage..... and then you have the risk that there were actually 2001 rights, and he through ignorance, mischance, or error missed one.
There is also an issue is that many of the privileges attendant upon marriage are in fact policy decisions that depend upon a third party. Insurance companies, for example, don't generally have a choice about whether or not to cover a legal spouse, but they can and do play games about unmarried partners (see pH unbalanced's comments above). The middle of a medical crisis is not a time to have to worry about legal and financial ones as well.
On the other side,.... religion. Nothing brings out the crazy obstructionism like religion.
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From the outside I look at the debate over gay marriage and am in a quandary over what it is exactly that's being fought for. I am of the opinion that the word 'rights' is thrown around far too much in modern society, to the point that any privilege anyone or any group gets automatically becomes a 'right' for everyone else by default... and I'm not singling out marriage in that observation, not by a long shot.Well, since this thread is about gay marriage: why shouldn't marriage as a legal right be extended to any two consenting parties?I think in my other post I kind of addressed my perspective on that, that as a Libertarian I'd prefer that the government get out of the marriage business altogether, that I'd rather see all of those legal exceptions and privileges removed from hetero sexual marriages than see then expanded upon for any other group.
I can only speak for myself, however, and that perspective is more of an over-reaching philosophy than a judgment on this particular situation.
Okay, sure, abolishing the government institution of marriage would be, at least in terms of equality, fine.
But that's not the current situation; marriage is a secular government institution that grants certain rights that have all (or at least mostly?) been mentioned here. I doubt that it's going away anytime soon. So again: why shouldn't marriage be legal between consenting parties, if it's going to continue to exist?
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"Marriage" is what we use now. I'd prefer to legalize gay marriage, but if people are so opposed to it that it can't pass, let's find something that everyone can accept as a "legal stewpot" taking care of the nonsense the government inflicts on us when people are born, separate, or die...
This is a perspective I could really understand and get behind, I think. Absolve marriage as a legal institution and let become an issue for the various religious sects and communities to argue over, to be as progressive or non-progressive, as inclusive or exclusive as they choose - as should be their right. Meanwhile have the government recognize certain legal a la carte 'packages' that couples (or even groups of people) could enter into as binding agreements that reflect whatever they perceive the legal institution to be. Call that a 'partnership' or some such that resolves issues like medical power of attorney, inheritance, etc. whether those involved are a man and a woman or three men.
What I worry about, based on my own experiences, is that that wouldn't resolve the issue for many, who seem to have taken up this cause not as a case of their rights being infringed upon but rather in an effort to force those who might say 'what you do in your bedroom is your business but I don't want to hear about it' to have to somehow be legally compelled to say aloud 'I accept your lifestyle'. That's just a lot of sound and fury to me and often serves to both obfuscate the real, attainable issues and well as force those on the other side of the aisle into actively defensive postures whereas before they were relatively indifferent.
On the other side,.... religion. Nothing brings out the crazy obstructionism like religion.
Well, I'll be the first to say that the less government and religion intersect the better... though I am also forced to acknowledge that by a very, very wide margin, those who hold themselves to a higher power, a greater moral authority, tend to be the most generous and most compassionate among us. The biggest problems seem to arise when they get their old testament chocolate mixed up with their new testament peanut butter.
I was ostracized my many 'religious' people for playing a satanic game like Dungeons and Dragons at an early age, so I understand the idiocy of religious hysteria well enough, but by and large I blame weak-minded or unstable individuals who have chosen to use religion as the focus and justification for their warped views than I do the religion itself.
"Marriage" is what we use now. I'd prefer to legalize gay marriage, but if people are so opposed to it that it can't pass, let's find something that everyone can accept as a "legal stewpot" taking care of the nonsense the government inflicts on us when people are born, separate, or die...This is a perspective I could really understand and get behind, I think. Absolve marriage as a legal institution and let become an issue for the various religious sects and communities to argue over, to be as progressive or non-progressive, as inclusive or exclusive as they choose - as should be their right.
Not going to happen. That's too much change all at once to pass. You might be able to start selling that idea and, who knows, maybe in thirty years there will be enough political support to make that happen.
In the meantime, we have people right now that are worried about what will happen if they get sick and can't get health insurance through their partner's carrier. There are people worried about what will happen if they die tomorrow. And there are a lot of people who aren't worried, but should be, because they will get sick and die even if they don't know it. Saying "oh, in thirty years, you'll be able to make sure your partner will be able to make medical decisions on your behalf" won't help if I'm worried about the next five years.
What I worry about, based on my own experiences, is that that wouldn't resolve the issue for many, who seem to have taken up this cause not as a case of their rights being infringed upon but rather in an effort to force those who might say 'what you do in your bedroom is your business but I don't want to hear about it' to have to somehow be legally compelled to say aloud 'I accept your lifestyle'.
That's an issue. The solution, IMHO, is to say "you don't have to accept it, you just have to deal with it."
Mother used to use the phrase "you can like it, or you can lump it." Bedtime, or eating broccoli, was not negotiable. Allowing a person I choose to make medical decisions on my behalf should not be negotiable on yours.
And, actually, the social movement seems to be going the other way from what you fear. The younger generation is moving away from the defensive postures into indifference, because they feel (correctly, in my view) that allowing me to pick who I want to make medical decisions on my behalf does not actually impinge upon their freedoms.
But that's not the current situation; marriage is a secular government institution that grants certain rights that have all (or at least mostly?) been mentioned here. I doubt that it's going away anytime soon. So again: why shouldn't marriage be legal between consenting parties, if it's going to continue to exist?
I don't think I've made an argument that it shouldn't... the point of this thread was to learn what exactly the LGBT community was fighting for that wasn't already within its legal grasp.
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On the other side,.... religion. Nothing brings out the crazy obstructionism like religion.Well, I'll be the first to say that the less government and religion intersect the better... though I am also forced to acknowledge that by a very, very wide margin, those who hold themselves to a higher power, a greater moral authority, tend to be the most generous and most compassionate among us. The biggest problems seem to arise when they get their old testament chocolate mixed up with their new testament peanut butter.
Your experiences and opinions are of course your own -- I don't share them. But "religion" also doesn't vote. I've never seen "Catholicism" in the voting booth. What does vote are, of course, people, with or without religious views.
And religion seems to be a very effective tool for bringing crazy obstructionists into the voting booth. Indeed, I think the current nutcase wing of Christianity was deliberately cultivated by the Republican party in the 1970s and 1980s to provide reliable voters who would thereby support the economic policies that were being pushed.
And the results are rather predictable. "They have sown the wind, and shall reap the whirlwind." (Hosea 6:7, IIRC) One of the problems for the modern Republican party is getting out from under the shadow of those same crazy religious obstructionists.
But that's not the current situation; marriage is a secular government institution that grants certain rights that have all (or at least mostly?) been mentioned here. I doubt that it's going away anytime soon. So again: why shouldn't marriage be legal between consenting parties, if it's going to continue to exist?I don't think I've made an argument that it shouldn't... the point of this thread was to learn what exactly the LGBT community was fighting for that wasn't already within its legal grasp.
Well, in essence, it's the ability and the right to have a life partner without also getting J.D. first.
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'what you do in your bedroom is your business but I don't want to hear about it' to have to somehow be legally compelled to say aloud 'I accept your lifestyle'.
Legal gay marriage won't force bigots to publicly say "I accept your lifestyle" anymore than legalizing interracial marriage forced racists to say the same.
Anyone who says "What you do in your bedroom is your business but I don't want to hear about it." is either actually saying
1)'I don't want to see evidence that Gay people exist.', which is bigoted b!#@@@!$. It's asking gay people to stay closeted for the benefit of some stranger. (Because this wouldn't just apply to marriage. It applies to simple things like going out in public together.)
or 2) 'I have no problem with gay people but thinking about gay sex makes me uncomfortable', in which case they need to get over themselves. When you hear a straight couple is getting married, you don't immediately think about what they do in their bedroom.
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But that's not the current situation; marriage is a secular government institution that grants certain rights that have all (or at least mostly?) been mentioned here. I doubt that it's going away anytime soon. So again: why shouldn't marriage be legal between consenting parties, if it's going to continue to exist?I don't think I've made an argument that it shouldn't... the point of this thread was to learn what exactly the LGBT community was fighting for that wasn't already within its legal grasp.
I'm not saying you made that argument, it was just a rhetorical device.
As others have pointed out, heterosexual marriages get a lot of legal rights for free that are not extended to non-heterosexual marriages. The alternatives are often incomplete, expensive, and/or also illegal.
In any case, marriage as a legal right should be available to all, equally. Why should "alternatives" be needed for non-heterosexual people? Again, that's rhetorical. You're in love? Want to spend your life with someone(s)? Bam. Marriage. The government currently wants to incentivize it with over a thousand legal rights. So don't limit it to heterosexual couples, because otherwise that's discrimination and inequality. Simple as that.
Grrr... made a LONG post, then deleted it because I thought it was too inflammatory, then Ross went and brought it up again.
Over the weekend we went to Disneyland. We happened to be there on Gay Day. Right there, in public, were gay couples holding hands, walking arm in arm, hugging, and occasionally kissing.
In short, performing basic acts of public affection that are generally accepted in married couples nationwide.
And it has only been in the last 10 years or so that gay couples have been able to do this even in the most liberal areas of the U.S.
Imagine being married to your love, but being told, "Sorry, but if you show any affection towards her at all in public, every store or restaurant has the right to refuse service to you, or even throw you out."
I forgive gays a lot of their vehemence because I've seen this in action, and it's very, very ugly. So they're rightfully upset. Yes, they definitely go over the top (I wince every time I hear, "We're here! We're queer! We're in your ear!"), but my 13-year-old son made me very proud: He saw two men kissing and his entire reaction was, "Dad, why does religion hate gay people so much?"
EDIT: What does this have to do with the original question? Not a heck of a lot. But Wiggz pointed out that the pro-gay marriage group can get overly-vehement. And I just wanted to say, growing up and living in the S.F. Bay Area, I've seen why they get that way. Though it doesn't excuse the more extreme behavior.
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Yeah, let's stop preventing those Utah gentlemen from having 6 underage wives. That will work juuuuuust fine.My personal stance on gay marriage issue (again, as an outsider) is the same as straight marriage - that the government should get out of the marriage business altogether.
Actually I'm completely in favor of polyamory as a lifestyle... and last I checked, sex with minors was still illegal regardless.
Honestly - have you ever made a post that wasn't just an excuse for snark?
Honestly - yes.
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I don't think I've made an argument that it shouldn't... the point of this thread was to learn what exactly the LGBT community was fighting for that wasn't already within its legal grasp.
And I think many people in this thread have provided excellent examples.
Marriage comes with a lot of automatic legal rights that would require a lot of paperwork and legal fees to keep up to date a la carte.Likewise, legal work-arounds often require extra paperwork and signatures when you try to use them. Oddly, many institutions will take a marriage at face value with no extra paperwork.
Marriages are recognized across state lines (in theory).
Marriage ties into hundreds of years of legal precedents, where domestic partnerships might not. (For instance, divorce law is well established. Dissolving a domestic partnership is less so.)
And of course, the whole thing where 'separate but equal' is, pretty much by definition, not actually equal.
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Honestly - yes.Yeah, let's stop preventing those Utah gentlemen from having 6 underage wives. That will work juuuuuust fine.My personal stance on gay marriage issue (again, as an outsider) is the same as straight marriage - that the government should get out of the marriage business altogether.
Actually I'm completely in favor of polyamory as a lifestyle... and last I checked, sex with minors was still illegal regardless.
Honestly - have you ever made a post that wasn't just an excuse for snark?
He tried it once...he didn't like it.
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... so what is it exactly being fought for? Legally fought for, I mean, since this is a legal case before the courts.
You should start with this list.
But legal recognition of same-sex marriage is hardly the end-all, be-all. Even more important is addressing individuals and organizations ability to legally discriminate against LGBT people for hiring, continued employment, housing, loans and banking access, higher education, reproductive services, and many more aspects that hetero-presenting individuals have had ready protection for decades, if not hundreds of years. This is why passage of ENDA is vitally important in guaranteeing equality. These are not "new" or "special" rights, but merely extending the same protections that the majority of U.S. citizens already possess.
First off, I'm a straight man married to an actively bisexual woman who is the absolute love of my life (on the boards as Story Archer). She has a number of gay and bi-sexual friends which means I now have a number of gay and bi-sexual friends. To a fault none of them are activist or concerned about much more than getting through life the way we all are, and none of them consider gay marriage much of an issue (including two couples who have had marriage ceremonies themselves). I'm putting those details out there just to provide context for the question and what must be my own ignorance on the subject.
My wife and I lived together for seven years before deciding to get married - we were 'there' already in our hearts and minds and never really had any intentions of doing it at all, but we weren't opposed to it either and eventually it just seemed like it was time (for the family as much as anything). We married in the bookstore where we met before a couple dozen friends and family in a non-religious ceremony. We've been married for four years this month. After we got married absolutely nothing in our lives changed, not socially, not financially, nothing.
From the outside I look at the debate over gay marriage and am in a quandary over what it is exactly that's being fought for. I am of the opinion that the word 'rights' is thrown around far too much in modern society, to the point that any privilege anyone or any group gets automatically becomes a 'right' for everyone else by default... and I'm not singling out marriage in that observation, not by a long shot.
My confusion is this: to my understanding, there are no laws against standing up in front of a group of loved ones and publically announcing your love and commitment to another person. Legal benefits of marriage all seem easily addressed in other ways (power of attorney, medical power of attorney, etc.), legal adoption of children by LGBT couples and individuals have been increasing dramatically every year... so what is it exactly being fought...
I had the same kind of view about marriage. I'd been with my partner for a few years and I knew she was the one, but I feek the need to make a big deal about it by getting married.
She, on the otherhand loved me, knew that she would always be together, but also wanted to have a wedding. Being married was important to her.
So one day I proposed and we got married 6 weeks ago.
The day is one we'll always remember.
Our friends and family helped out and it truly was a magical experience.
My point. Marriage may not be a big deal for you, your wife or past me, but it's big deal for a lot of straight and gay couples.
LazarX beat me to the punch. I think asking that we separate marriage from any legal ramifications is unrealistic. Because at the end of the day, most of those legal ramifications exist for a reason. You would have to create a separate body of law to address all those issues associated with benefits, child-rearing, inheritance, etc.
Also...yeah this isn't about getting people to "accept" same-sex relationships. No one expects that those folks are going to change their mind. It is about getting them to shut up and mind their own business though.
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I'm not gay, bi, or anything other than plain vanilla straight. I don’t normally care about the topic, because I don’t care about marriage as a thing. If I were divorced I would never marry again as my wife is the only person in the universe I would marry. However..
Performing a Full Honors funeral for a dead hero (no, I don’t care about your venomous anti-military opinion, so don’t bother) and seeing that his partner didn’t receive the flag or his benefits in lieu of his estranged, adulterous, morally vacuous ex-wife made me care. Either give it to everyone or make it a church only thing, represented by a legal union available to everyone of consenting age.
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My confusion is this: to my understanding, there are no laws against standing up in front of a group of loved ones and publically announcing your love and commitment to another person. Legal benefits of marriage all seem easily addressed in other ways (power of attorney, medical power of attorney, etc.), legal adoption of children by LGBT couples and individuals have been increasing dramatically every year...
Except that isn't the case. You cannot file taxes jointly. You do not gain the same tax incentives married couples get. It is much harder to own property jointly. It is much harder to have your legal arrangements recognized across state lines. There is more, but it was already linked to above.
What I worry about, based on my own experiences, is that that wouldn't resolve the issue for many, who seem to have taken up this cause not as a case of their rights being infringed uponBut we have in fact demonstrated all the things straight married couples get than a gay civil partnership either cannot get or has to go through additional trouble to get.
but rather in an effort to force those who might say 'what you do in your bedroom is your business but I don't want to hear about it' to have to somehow be legally compelled to say aloud 'I accept your lifestyle'.
How, exactly? Just because I marry a woman doesn't mean you are legally compelled to say anything to me, positive or negative. Furthermore, affirming that my bedroom is my business does nothing to alleviate the massive legal disparities between a gay marriage and a gay partnership. About all it does is come off as dismissive and condescending.
Fundamentally, marriage is the word we use for taking an unrelated couple and turning them into a family. There are a whole bunch of legal things that come along with that, but they're really all part of "These two unrelated people are now each other's closest relatives."
Gay people what to make families too. Let them.
Uh, I am stealing this and keeping to repeat it in future discussions.