"I declare you legally wed"

[Tom Rinaldo]

What would be the reaction here if some state decided to allow gay weddings? If instead of being in a domestic partnership, gay and lesbian couples could be wed instead? If newly wed gay couples left for their honeymoon to the cheers of friends and family? If they later celebrated the anniversary of being wed ten years?

Weddings are an ancient tradition. How would fundementalist Christians react if a state replaced domestic partnerships with weddings that resulted in people being wed to each other, if the specific word mairrage wasn't used. How would we feel about it? I wonder.

[MADem]

1. They'd have to invent a new FEDERAL definition, then. There is a federal definition of marriage.

That's the rub.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. How are domestic partnerships defined between states now?

Or are they simply seen as a contract that is only legally binding in the state where that partnership was entered? Do domestic partnership rights cross state lines? If I were in a domestic partnership with someone while travelling and my partner became gravely ill, would I have ths same legally protected visitation rights in a state we did not live in?

[MADem]

13. Some states recognize them, and some do not. It is NOT uniform. At all.

And the federal government says "Fuck You!" And THAT's the worst of it.

If gay marriage isn't recognized at the FEDERAL level, a gay couple doesn't get the same treatment as heterosexual couples in, for example, the way social security is allocated.

You know how, when a husband who makes big money dies, his "stay at home/part time working" wife can, at retirement, collect a social security benefit based on her HUSBAND's earnings? (Or vice versa--I'm simplifying, here). It is a MUCH larger benefit than she would have gotten if her social security was based on her OWN earnings.

Well, when "Big Money Gay George" dies, and leaves behind his Civil Union/Domestic Partner/Married in Massachusetts "Gay Part-time Pete," poor Pete can only collect benefits based on his own crappy work history. Even though Pete did all the bookkeeping for his husband, for free, at home, did all George's housework and laundry, cooked for George, and did everything that basically enabled George to make all that money...AND they were legally bound...but ONLY at the STATE LEVEL.

Now, if Pete were a WOMAN, married, say, in Massachusetts or Connecticut to George, he'd get all those federal benefits. But he's discriminated against at the federal level, even if married, just because his union isn't "heterosexual."

It's wrong.

These gay people are NOT whiners. They have a valid point. That's just ONE example. I won't even go into medical benefits, hospitalization, issues of wills and inheritance, taxes, etc.

I think it's a shame how little respect they're getting, from Obama and, sadly, from some folks here on this liberal (ha) board. I always believed that we never raise ourselves up by keeping others down...Obama ought to know better.

[snooper2]

17. garriage

make it the same in the eyes of the law as marriage :)

[Jennicut]

2. Aren't same-sex couples allowed to legally wed in Mass and CT?

I thought it was same sex marriage here and in Mass, not civil unions.

On January 31, 2007, State Senator Andrew J. McDonald and State Representative Michael Lawlor, Co-Chairpersons of the Judiciary Committee, announced the introduction of a bill that would give same-sex couples full marriage rights in the state of Connecticut. The bill, HB 7395,<5> successfully passed the judiciary committee by a vote of 27–15 on April 12, 2007. At the time, Connecticut became only the third state in U.S. history, after Massachusetts, then California, to have a legislative body vote in favor of same-sex marriage. Opponents of same-sex marriage have said they want a non-binding public referendum on the issue, however not a single legislator, Democrat or Republican, introduced a bill that would have done so. When it was offered in committee as an amendment, it was defeated by a bipartisan vote.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Connecticut

[sandnsea]

4. Massachusetts has weddings

Oregon had them for a while, as did California. That's what has led us to the current circumstance. I don't get your point.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. OK, here's the ;point

What if a state recognized weddings but did not include language that specified that they resulted in a mairrage? I am mulling over the power of words and concepts. Obviously it does not convey the same emotional and spiritual meaning for a couple to be granted a domestic partnership even if the rights it entails were identical with those of a mairrage. But to be wed carries both deep cultural and spiritual meanings. If being legally wed carried the same national reidghts as being married, without use of the word mairrage, wherer would that leave fundies who insist on a mairrage being between a man and a woman if our society acknowledged that gays and lesbians can be wedded to each other?

[sandnsea]

10. Like civil unions

The ceremony and the legal rights without the word. It's not good enough, apparently, even though many of us fought like hell to make that much progress in our respective states.

[MADem]

14. If you don't recognize "it" at the federal level, then gay people are denied benefits that accrue to

married people. And then, as someone else pointed out, there's the issue of equal protection.

[Tom Rinaldo]

15. Yes, it has to be federally recognized

There isn't even a pretense of equal legal rights being granted to gay and lesbian couples without that. And that doesn't begin to touch the denial of the spiritual and emotional dimension of those relationships if those couples can't claim to be married.

That (no federal recognition) is a problem that already stands with "domestic partnership" laws. I simply suspect that the day when gay mairrages are legal and accepted would be moved closer if we immediately abandoned the cold legalistic languuage of "domestic partnership" and replaced it with a status of being "legally wed", in those cases where states are ready to recognize legal rights within gay relationships but not ready to call them mairrages. I explained why I suspect that in another post on this thread.

[MADem]

19. We'd have to abandon the word MARRIAGE, then--federally speaking.

And make it the same for all, regardless of orientation and regardless of whether the union is heterosexual or homosexual.

The whole "marriage" game would revert to where it belongs--the churches. Each church can make up their own idiotic rules if they'd like.

As my great grandmother used to say, "You can't make fish of one and flesh of t'other."

[Solon]

5. Weddings themselves don't mean anything in legal context, Gay couples can have weddings...

in all fifty states. All they have to do is find a church that's willing, and there are plenty of churches that are willing. Its just that those marriages are symbolic only, they have no legal contract, nor a government to enforce said contract behind them.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. But what if "being wed" became a legally recognized status...

...with the same legal standing as "being married"?

[Critters2]

18. Yep. I just last night had a call from a couple and put their wedding on my calendar.

When I marry them, they'll be married in the eyes of my church. But there'll be no license to sign afterward (though I will give them a certificate that I'll make myself), and the state won't recognize. And that's just wrong.

[Mass]

6. My state does, as does Connecticut. I do not have any problem with it.

and many fundamentalist Christians just think homosexuality is wrong. They do no care whether people are married, in partnership, or otherwise.

[Marrah_G]

7. My state has for years

It's become the norm and my kids are growing up knowing it is normal for two adults who love one another to get MARRIED.

Separate is never equal.

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. I understand that and agree

but I also give thought to how change comes about. Right now the bar has shifted. Many anti gay mairrage forces have stepped back from openly fighting equal legal rights for gay and lesbian couples. Now they draw the line on the definition of a highly charged word; mairrage. But what if "domestic partnerships" were replaced by getting "legally wed"? Almost everyone emotionally equates a wedding with a mairrage. I suspect that if legal gay weddings became the norm that many people would quickly slip into thinking of those couples as "married", thus undermining the culteral bias presented for fixing the definition of a mairrage as being solely between a man and a woman.

[Jamastiene]

9. That would still violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment

AMENDMENT XIV

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Note: Article I, section 2, of the Constitution was modified by section 2 of the 14th amendment.

Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

---

Source: The United States Constitution

[Starry Messenger]

16. This is the correct answer.

Neat, tidy and all American. Sounds good to me. :thumbsup: