I did a search "what do gays want"...primarily because there's a lot of false information presented to look like fact.
I think....what's the big deal?
I mean there are a lot of people that don't believe in marriage.
It's a legal thing anyway.
Legitimizing the responsibilities in a legal sense.
So, why do gays want it?
It makes it way harder to leave.
Suddenly you're in court splitting things, dividing time for the children, like so much pumpkin pie.
One piece for you, one for me. Your piece is bigger!
You get the picture.
It's never pretty.
So why not just cohab?
And then I read the following. (http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-02-24/news/i-d-leave-the-country-but-my-wife-won-t-let-me/1)
Here are some excerpts...
I want to be a full citizen, with this woman [her partner, Sarah], today. I want to do whatever it takes, sacrifice whatever is necessary, go wherever I have to, for that to be so.
I want to be taxed equally. I want my Social Security benefits to go somewhere besides down the drain. I want the Fifth Amendment right not to testify against Sarah, and to protect our private correspondence from subpoena, the same as other spouses. Couples like us don't have that right.
Surprised?
Rosie O'Donnell and her wife were, when the lawyers came after them.
I want our politicians and religious leaders to stop going on television and suggesting that legalizing marriage for us would be like legalizing sex with dogs.
My wife, in my arms?
They are talking about my wife, in my arms.
Do they know, do they care, how much that hurts?
Where must we run to be safe from them?
I want my wife not to feel such pressure and fear that she curls up in bed at night and cries.
On the night of Wednesday, February 25, a woman in Brooklyn lay crying because she can't understand why people would hate her so, why they'd have to denigrate a beautiful and private part of her life with the most heinous rhetoric.
Think about that.
My wife lay in tears because strangers are clamoring for the power to decide whether she belongs, whether the American promise should hold true for her — as if there were any question which way they'd vote.
What stands between us and them?
A couple dozen senators, and some of those are on the fence.
Where is our right to a meaningful marriage, to the honest pursuit of happiness?
We want our justice and "domestic tranquility."
Whose country is this, anymore? Someone tell me.
I get the feeling it's no longer mine.
I found that to be so poignant.
And then I read this from here (http://www.bidstrup.com/marriage.htm)
Why This Is A Serious Civil Rights Issue
When gay people say that this is a civil rights issue, we are referring to matters of civil justice, which often can be quite serious - and can have life-damaging, even life-threatening consequences.
One of these is the fact that in most states, we cannot make medical decisions for our partners in in emergency.
Instead, the hospitals are usually forced by state laws to go to the families who may have been estranged from us for decades, who are often hostile to us, and can and frequently do, totally ignore our wishes regarding the treatment of our partners. If a hostile family wishes to exclude us from the hospital room, they may legally do so in most states. It is even not uncommon for hostile families to make decisions based on their hostility -- with results consciously intended to be as inimical to the interests of the patient as possible!
Is this fair?
Upon death, in many cases, even very carefully drawn wills and durable powers of attorney have proven to not be enough if a family wishes to challenge a will, overturn a custody decision, or exclude us from a funeral or deny us the right to visit a partner's hospital bed or grave.
As survivors, estranged families can, in nearly all states, even seize a real estate property that a gay couple may have been buying together for many years, quickly sell it at the largest possible loss, and stick the surviving partner with all the remaining mortgage obligations on a property that partner no longer owns, leaving him out on the street, penniless. There are hundreds of examples of this, even in many cases where the gay couple had been extremely careful to do everything right under current law, in a determined effort to protect their rights.
Is this fair?
If our partners are arrested, we can be compelled to testify against them or provide evidence against them, which legally married couples are not forced to do. In court cases, a partner's testimony can be simply ruled irrelevant as heresay by a hostile judge, having no more weight in law than the testimony of a complete stranger. If a partner is jailed or imprisoned, visitation rights by the partner can, in most cases, can be denied on the whim of a hostile family and the cooperation of a homophobic judge, unrestrained by any law or precedent. Conjugal visits, a well-established right of heterosexual married couples in some settings, are simply not available to gay couples.
Is this fair?
These are far from being just theoretical issues; they happen with surprising frequency. Almost any older gay couple can tell you numerous horror stories of friends and acquaintances who have been victimized in such ways. One couple I know uses the following line in the "sig" lines on their email: "...partners and lovers for 40 years, yet still strangers before the law." Why, as a supposedly advanced society, should we continue to tolerate this kind of injustice?
These are all civil rights issues that have nothing whatsoever to do with the ecclesiastical origins of marriage; they are matters that have become enshrined in state laws by legislation or court precedent over the years in many ways that exclude us from the rights that legally married couples enjoy and even consider their constitutional right.
This is why we say it is very much a serious civil rights issue; it has nothing to do with who performs the ceremony, whether it is performed in a church or courthouse or the local country club, or whether an announcement about it is accepted for publication in the local newspaper.
Much of the argument against has no basis in reality.
"You can leave money to whomever you want!"
"You can award benefits to your dog...didn't you hear about that woman that left all her money to her cats? "
"They just want their abhorrent behavior recognized by the legal system! They are imposing their beliefs on us!"
Isn't that strange? I have found that most baseless arguments involved projection - blaming others for what you are actually doing. We are imposing OUR beliefs on THEM. They are trying to legitimize their relationships not for approval, not so that it can be taught in school, but so their families are cared for when they pass, so that they can care for each other should one become incapacitated.
Shudder.
How awful!
It will happen.
It is inevitable.
But I understand their impatience.
They deserve to have the rights of everyone else.
It IS a big deal. It does matter.
I think....what's the big deal?
I mean there are a lot of people that don't believe in marriage.
It's a legal thing anyway.
Legitimizing the responsibilities in a legal sense.
So, why do gays want it?
It makes it way harder to leave.
Suddenly you're in court splitting things, dividing time for the children, like so much pumpkin pie.
One piece for you, one for me. Your piece is bigger!
You get the picture.
It's never pretty.
So why not just cohab?
And then I read the following. (http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-02-24/news/i-d-leave-the-country-but-my-wife-won-t-let-me/1)
Here are some excerpts...
I want to be a full citizen, with this woman [her partner, Sarah], today. I want to do whatever it takes, sacrifice whatever is necessary, go wherever I have to, for that to be so.
I want to be taxed equally. I want my Social Security benefits to go somewhere besides down the drain. I want the Fifth Amendment right not to testify against Sarah, and to protect our private correspondence from subpoena, the same as other spouses. Couples like us don't have that right.
Surprised?
Rosie O'Donnell and her wife were, when the lawyers came after them.
I want our politicians and religious leaders to stop going on television and suggesting that legalizing marriage for us would be like legalizing sex with dogs.
My wife, in my arms?
They are talking about my wife, in my arms.
Do they know, do they care, how much that hurts?
Where must we run to be safe from them?
I want my wife not to feel such pressure and fear that she curls up in bed at night and cries.
On the night of Wednesday, February 25, a woman in Brooklyn lay crying because she can't understand why people would hate her so, why they'd have to denigrate a beautiful and private part of her life with the most heinous rhetoric.
Think about that.
My wife lay in tears because strangers are clamoring for the power to decide whether she belongs, whether the American promise should hold true for her — as if there were any question which way they'd vote.
What stands between us and them?
A couple dozen senators, and some of those are on the fence.
Where is our right to a meaningful marriage, to the honest pursuit of happiness?
We want our justice and "domestic tranquility."
Whose country is this, anymore? Someone tell me.
I get the feeling it's no longer mine.
I found that to be so poignant.
And then I read this from here (http://www.bidstrup.com/marriage.htm)
Why This Is A Serious Civil Rights Issue
When gay people say that this is a civil rights issue, we are referring to matters of civil justice, which often can be quite serious - and can have life-damaging, even life-threatening consequences.
One of these is the fact that in most states, we cannot make medical decisions for our partners in in emergency.
Instead, the hospitals are usually forced by state laws to go to the families who may have been estranged from us for decades, who are often hostile to us, and can and frequently do, totally ignore our wishes regarding the treatment of our partners. If a hostile family wishes to exclude us from the hospital room, they may legally do so in most states. It is even not uncommon for hostile families to make decisions based on their hostility -- with results consciously intended to be as inimical to the interests of the patient as possible!
Is this fair?
Upon death, in many cases, even very carefully drawn wills and durable powers of attorney have proven to not be enough if a family wishes to challenge a will, overturn a custody decision, or exclude us from a funeral or deny us the right to visit a partner's hospital bed or grave.
As survivors, estranged families can, in nearly all states, even seize a real estate property that a gay couple may have been buying together for many years, quickly sell it at the largest possible loss, and stick the surviving partner with all the remaining mortgage obligations on a property that partner no longer owns, leaving him out on the street, penniless. There are hundreds of examples of this, even in many cases where the gay couple had been extremely careful to do everything right under current law, in a determined effort to protect their rights.
Is this fair?
If our partners are arrested, we can be compelled to testify against them or provide evidence against them, which legally married couples are not forced to do. In court cases, a partner's testimony can be simply ruled irrelevant as heresay by a hostile judge, having no more weight in law than the testimony of a complete stranger. If a partner is jailed or imprisoned, visitation rights by the partner can, in most cases, can be denied on the whim of a hostile family and the cooperation of a homophobic judge, unrestrained by any law or precedent. Conjugal visits, a well-established right of heterosexual married couples in some settings, are simply not available to gay couples.
Is this fair?
These are far from being just theoretical issues; they happen with surprising frequency. Almost any older gay couple can tell you numerous horror stories of friends and acquaintances who have been victimized in such ways. One couple I know uses the following line in the "sig" lines on their email: "...partners and lovers for 40 years, yet still strangers before the law." Why, as a supposedly advanced society, should we continue to tolerate this kind of injustice?
These are all civil rights issues that have nothing whatsoever to do with the ecclesiastical origins of marriage; they are matters that have become enshrined in state laws by legislation or court precedent over the years in many ways that exclude us from the rights that legally married couples enjoy and even consider their constitutional right.
This is why we say it is very much a serious civil rights issue; it has nothing to do with who performs the ceremony, whether it is performed in a church or courthouse or the local country club, or whether an announcement about it is accepted for publication in the local newspaper.
Much of the argument against has no basis in reality.
"You can leave money to whomever you want!"
"You can award benefits to your dog...didn't you hear about that woman that left all her money to her cats? "
"They just want their abhorrent behavior recognized by the legal system! They are imposing their beliefs on us!"
Isn't that strange? I have found that most baseless arguments involved projection - blaming others for what you are actually doing. We are imposing OUR beliefs on THEM. They are trying to legitimize their relationships not for approval, not so that it can be taught in school, but so their families are cared for when they pass, so that they can care for each other should one become incapacitated.
Shudder.
How awful!
It will happen.
It is inevitable.
But I understand their impatience.
They deserve to have the rights of everyone else.
It IS a big deal. It does matter.
Comments