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News & ArtsMonday, October 19, 2009
Homo / News What They Said
Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 12:23 PM
While the courts have become increasingly ready to extend family-law protections to same-sex partners in adoption and child custody cases, parents at the head of these families remain legal strangers to each other, causing problems that range from inconvenient to inhumane. Maine statutes use the word "spouse" 400 times. They use the word "marital" 600 times. There is virtually no way to surgically carve out and tie together all the rights and responsibilities of marriage in a legal relationship that does what marriage does without calling it marriage.There is also no way to provide the universally understood family status that comes with a marriage contract. Husbands and wives don't need to produce durable powers of attorney or advance directives when they pick up their children from school, visit a hospital room or make decisions at a funeral home. Only same-sex couples are required to produce documents and jump through these legal hoops, and that is not what the equal protection clause in the state constitution promises.
Families led by same-sex partners are here now. They are part of our communities and they need and deserve the legal protections—as well as the dignity—that comes with civil marriage status.
Via Towleroad.
1
I'm sure that Pres. Obama will read this, gasp in alarm, and immediately sign into law legal marriage rights for homosexuals.
2
Next step if SB 5688 is implemented. Challenge the language to force the recognition of gay marriage. This is the bottom line behind all this, its just one step at a time, little by little dismantling and when it has been fragmented enough then start to challenge the terminology to finish the agenda completely.
3
What they said, indeed.
There is virtually no way to surgically carve out and tie together all the rights and responsibilities of marriage in a legal relationship that does what marriage does without calling it marriage.
That's one of clearest statements yet that I've seen on the issue.
Thanks for sharing that (I haven't had a chance to check out Andy's site today, yet).
There is virtually no way to surgically carve out and tie together all the rights and responsibilities of marriage in a legal relationship that does what marriage does without calling it marriage.
That's one of clearest statements yet that I've seen on the issue.
Thanks for sharing that (I haven't had a chance to check out Andy's site today, yet).
4
It's only a matter of time before the nefarious gay agenda plot to be treated as full citizens is enacted!
7
Hey Loveschild, 75% of domestic partnerships are heterosexual couples. I happen to be in one of them. But yaknow, let your slippery slope fuck the legal protections that keep my family safe.
8
Respect and fair treatment is just common sense. I can't wait until bullshit like this doesn't need to be voted on.
9
Beyond the hassle and cost of jumping through all kind of hoops to draw up legal paperwork to achieve what opposite sex couples gain automatically through marriage, sometimes it doesn’t even work. When my partner of 18 years died, the funeral home required her family’s permission to perform the cremation - even though I had an unrestricted durable power of attorney, a health care surrogacy contract, and her will, which requested me to make all final arrangements and listed me as the exclusive heir to her estate.
My partner’s legal next of kin was her estranged sister who lived several states away. Thank God, she consented to the cremation and allowed me to have the ashes. The funeral home was fine with me paying, but said I didn’t have the legal authority to make decisions about the disposal of the body. They stated that the power of attorney and health care surrogacy were binding up until the time of death, and that even though the will named me as the executor and exclusive heir to the estate, the will was not valid until it went though probate. So there I was, devastated by the loss of my partner to cancer, at the mercy of distant, estranged “next-of-kin”, who had no idea what my partner’s end of life wishes were. All that said, even with all the paperwork, things are unequal…
Don’t even get me started about freeze the bank put on our joint checking account or how much taxes I paid that year (over $20,000) because the state and federal government considered the inheritance of our JOINT assets as windfall I received from a total stranger!
My partner’s legal next of kin was her estranged sister who lived several states away. Thank God, she consented to the cremation and allowed me to have the ashes. The funeral home was fine with me paying, but said I didn’t have the legal authority to make decisions about the disposal of the body. They stated that the power of attorney and health care surrogacy were binding up until the time of death, and that even though the will named me as the executor and exclusive heir to the estate, the will was not valid until it went though probate. So there I was, devastated by the loss of my partner to cancer, at the mercy of distant, estranged “next-of-kin”, who had no idea what my partner’s end of life wishes were. All that said, even with all the paperwork, things are unequal…
Don’t even get me started about freeze the bank put on our joint checking account or how much taxes I paid that year (over $20,000) because the state and federal government considered the inheritance of our JOINT assets as windfall I received from a total stranger!
10
I apologize, loveschild, for your inability to exclude people. It must hurt knowing that you have to treat people fairly, yeah?
11
So to those that say "All the rights of marriage just call it something else" well sugar that's impossible in our Democracy. You gotta call it what it is for EVERYONE not just a special right for someones (currently a special right for Heteros). And LOVESCHILD have you been going to the meetings in disguise and finding out about "The Agenda"? What is it again that's being dismantled by allowing adults to marry? I missed that part at the meeting.
13
Personally, I think Loveschild is actually a 14-year old boy who just wants to live in a world where he can people "faggots" on Xbox Live and not get bitched at over it.
14
(And yes, Rob, I know this officially makes me a hypocrite, and I'll admit it make me a bit of an asshole because if I was in a better mood I wouldn't have posted anything at all. You can skip over my posts if they upset you.)
15
@9 - that's a horrible story. That should never happen to anyone. Thanks for telling it - people everywhere need to hear that THIS STILL HAPPENS.
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