Bingo, I got it.. finally.. ok now, but and this might or might not be a big but. How does one get the rights to start with? If no one will recognise our legal rights such as the marriage rights, what good would it be to be protected from violence, if we still do not have the same rights as a straight couple..

Wouldn't there have to be some change in the basic law that no one gets rights that are not allowed another group?

Oh pleas oh please don't tell me I am still not getting it?

Have a good nights rest, Nogames, I am going to do the same and hope this doesn't inhabit my dreams.. lol

Thanks, I had a very good night. Hope you did as well.

I think it is time you should mention some of those rights that say, a gay couple is missing today.

And how many of those 98% were TOLD that he is crazy by the mass media and therefore took it as absolute truth?

After all...think back to the election coverage. Who got 99.9999% of the attention from the media? Why, it was McCain and Obama.

There were no other candidates. At least that's what the general public was lead to believe.

EXACTLY!!

Guess whogot the most? People say that the media supported McCain, but Obama had much more coverage. In fact most of his coverage was positive, where as most of McCain's made him out to be a feeble old man who was a clone of Bush. If anyone were interested in the FACTS they should go to both their campaign websites. Copy all the policies down in your own words and paste them next to eachother. Those two are DRASTICALLY close in almost every area. But once again, people are subject to the bombardment of mass media.

Yes I did thank you, Nogames..

There is a much larger list but I seem to have lost the link. Here is a shorter list with the link where they are located at the top. There are several I never even thought of.

Found here: http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bene.htm

The list below was compiled for a couple living in the United States. However, similar provisions exist in many other countries.

On the order of 1,400 legal rights are conferred upon married couples in the U.S. Typically these are composed of about 400 state benefits and over 1,000 federal benefits. Among them are the rights to:

joint parenting; joint adoption; joint foster care, custody, and visitation (including non-biological parents);

status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent;
joint insurance policies for home, auto and health;
dissolution and divorce protections such as community property and child support;
immigration and residency for partners from other countries;
inheritance automatically in the absence of a will;
joint leases with automatic renewal rights in the event one partner dies or leaves the house or apartment;
inheritance of jointly-owned real and personal property through the right of survivorship (which avoids the time and expense and taxes in probate);
benefits such as annuities, pension plans, Social Security, and Medicare;
spousal exemptions to property tax increases upon the death of one partner who is a co-owner of the home;
veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans; joint filing of tax returns;
joint filing of customs claims when traveling;
wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner and children;
bereavement or sick leave to care for a partner or child;
decision-making power with respect to whether a deceased partner will be cremated or not and where to bury him or her;
crime victims' recovery benefits;
loss of consortium tort benefits;
domestic violence protection orders;
judicial protections and evidentiary immunity;
and more....

Most of these legal and economic benefits cannot be privately arranged or contracted for. For example, absent a legal (or civil) marriage, there is no guaranteed joint responsibility to the partner and to third parties (including children) in such areas as child support, debts to creditors, taxes, etc. In addition, private employers and institutions often give other economic privileges and other benefits (special rates or memberships) only to married couples. And, of course, when people cannot marry, they are denied all the emotional and social benefits and responsibilities of marriage as well.

*posting for access to read later*

Well done, boo2u.

It seems most people lack the knowledge to understand the battles of minorities.

nogames says it all in the following quote:



I agree totally with his view but it is not current reality. There are laws at the federal level, as boo pointed out, that are there because they were meant to be 'standard'. They are 'compliance' laws.

As nogames stated, the Constitution and laws have had to evolve in order to stay current as our culture has, likewise, evolved. In the case where a minority is denied any measure of equality, simply for lack of being specifically meantioned at the federal level, amendments were required.

Those changes were required in order to prevent individual states from non-compliance to the Bill of Rights.

This is what happened with school rezoning at the state level, with mixed race marriage, at the state level, with abortion, at the state level. Now, again, a "new miniority" is speaking up and all they want in 'inclusion' of Federal recognition, because the states would deny this minority 'inclusion' under Federal Laws.

That is the reason why there is such a push to for same-sex marriage to be Federally recognized.

No one responded after your reply boo, I sure hope a few read it and came away with a new understanding.

Well I am satisified that a lot more people understand the issue than some of us in the gay community realize. Prop8 might have turned out differently had not the church gotten so involved in such a bit way financially and otherwise.

I am working on this, boo2u. Will post later.

I understand that there are more “rights” that are in question with respect to domestic partnerships versus married couples, than you have named here. However, I believe every one of them will fall in one of the few categories as separated below.

Legal Contract:

dissolution and divorce protections such as community property and child support;
joint leases with automatic renewal rights in the event one partner dies or leaves the house or apartment;
inheritance of jointly-owned real and personal property through the right of survivorship
(which avoids the time and expense and taxes in probate);
benefits such as annuities, pension plans,
wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner and children;
decision-making power with respect to whether a deceased partner will be cremated or not and where to bury him or her;
joint insurance policies for home, auto and health;
status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent;
joint parenting; joint adoption; joint foster care, custody, and visitation (including non-biological parents);


Wrong rights:

spousal exemptions to property tax increases upon the death of one partner who is a co-owner of the home;
bereavement or sick leave to care for a partner or child;
Social Security, and Medicare;
domestic violence protection orders;
immigration and residency for partners from other countries;


Ridiculous:

inheritance automatically in the absence of a will;
joint filing of customs claims when traveling;


Unclear:

veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans; joint filing of tax returns;
crime victims' recovery benefits;
loss of consortium tort benefits;
judicial protections and evidentiary immunity;



With respect to Legal category I can say that these can be insured by proper legal construct between two or more persons. In other words, you ca agree to give each other these rights. There is no need for the government to step-in.

The Wrong Rights category. These should not exist as rights in the first place, as they are discriminatory in essence. These so called rights are fulfilled by making other (non married) persons to pay for the benefits these rights insure. There is nothing different in these rights from say requiring all maintenance workers to clean homes of police officers for free. Why should married pay less tax? Why should a company pay for bereavement?
Why should I pay into Social Security?
Why should one be able to “Naturalize a spouse”, but not a friend? Why should there be a special law of violence protection only for spouses? How about the rest of the folks?


Ridiculous category. These can be taken care of. There is no need to have a law, just to save some people some paperwork or care, but not to others.

Unclear. Well, I am no lawyer. I do not know what these mean. But if I did, I would place them in one of the categories above.

Finally, I expect you to be not in agreement with what I have said here. Why? Because, most people that I have seen, want the government to give them a higher status than to others, in effect discriminating in their favor.

You said:

“On the order of 1,400 legal rights are conferred upon married couples in the U.S. Typically these are composed of about 400 state benefits and over 1,000 federal benefits. “

And I have this question: Why is this that married couples receive all these “rights”, but no one else? The answer is that these couples represent a voting block. The simply force their rights over the rights of everyone else.

I, therefore, propose that in order to create a more perfect union, we should remove any and all rights, that aren’t for everyone. If this is the path that you want to follow, then you can see how two gay persons will be exactly equal in their rights to a married couple, as they will only have the rights from “Legal” category, i.e. simply their own mutual agreements to each other.

If on the other hand, you simply seek to include yourself in a privileged category, then
honestly, why should I be even interested in helping you to achieve that, if I don’t believe that the privileged category is fairly having it’s rights? To add a second “superior human” group to the first one?

http://www.ccmegop.org/index.php?option=com_poll&task=results&id=23&mosmsg=Thanks+for+your+vote%21

Who are most of the people you have seen? Are you talking about gay people? I only hear that they want equal rights meaning the same rights as all other couples in marriage.

There's something really distasteful to me in having to even discuss this in 2008, enough time has gone by that you would think people would not be so uninformed about gay people to begin with.

Never having any of these rights, I really don't know what any of them mean. I just did a search for a list of rights and that is what I got. There could be sites that have a better list and better explanation.



Through out the 80's and 90's the propaganda was that gays wanted 'Special rights', no gay could explain different above the shouting. The propaganda succeeded in getting people to believe a lie. No surprise, they knew that people knew little to nothing about gays, so it was easy to get them to believe exactly what they wanted them to believe.

I don't know why it's not the case today. Maybe more people started thinking about it and found that the propaganda wasn't being quite honest, who knows, but it does show that times change and people change. Maybe in another 20 years...

Nogames, I really think people that will help will be the families and friends of gays. People that know gays, who live with them who socialize and work with them, because they know more about gays and aren't intimidated by the powers that be that would like nothing better than for this to just all go away. Geez, even I want it to go away, but because it's been dealt with once and for all.

It will be people who can relate to us because we really are just like everyone else in all ways but one. And that one thing just isn't significant enough to deny equal rights. And I am referring to body parts.

I am sure there are smarter people than me, that can explain this in a much better way. I am not at all sure I am not mangling they whole thing. I wouldn't be the one to speak for the whole gay community.

Nogames wrote:



As I stated, I would totally agree with the least invasive ‘personal’ form of government. Removing ALL laws that don’t pertain to ALL the people are certainly areas in which normal legal services could be of value. As always, however, it’s not that simple.

First of all, legal services cost money. To attain a will and maintain it, to attain a civil agreement, inclusive of all and only those rights a couple desires and on and on, can be expensive and although we are among, if not, the richest country in the world, those riches are not equally divided. Furthermore, can you even imagine the paperwork and the legalities of hospitals, and the entire medical field, adoptions agencies, insurance companies, and many more, that would exist for all these functions to remain in legal compliance?

Therefore, “normal” provisions affecting the mass majority were implemented at the Federal level. This relieves people of the expense of individual legal responsibilities and the institutions of the time, policing and paperwork of verification of the legal matters of individuals.

Secondly, there are rights bestowed, by marriage, and inheritance solely at the Federal level when it comes to international and military law. These cannot be taken out of the hands of the Federal Government as we have granted dictates over these matters to those governing officials.

So while simplicity sounds good, and while ‘personal’ federal governance is not optimal or really even desired, it would take a revelation to change it. The mass majority would not agree with such simplicity, because they “simply” cannot afford it.

I don't understand what you just said Red. How would you solve this issue of gay marriage in the most sensible way if you had the authority to do it. Just curious...

Boo2u,

Is it your initial presumption that the rights currently covering married couples should indeed do cover married couples?

If yes, there is no possibility of agreement. I understand that it changes nothing, but I am not willing to waste my effort to support a cause of just another group to become special.

And again, I see no difference in that of a married couple and a couple of gays. All I am saying is that neither should have any special rights, and that that currently a married couple has more rights than a gay couple is unfair.

Redykeulous,

So, why should I be taxed to save money to certain groups? Nothing is free, you do understand that, right? So, if government is saving some for some groups, by taking care of a particular spectre of activity and not for the others, then those who support the government (pay taxes) share the expences on that caretaking, while the only ones who benefit from it is that group?

what good is this?

Where is the equality?

Your arguments are real. Yes, married couples do prevail. Yes, they dictate the lay, and make all others to pay for their personal problems.

But your argument is lacking morality. I cannot support gays based on an intention of creating yet another group living off my taxes!

The first two paragraphs are confusing to me. I agree with the last statement. I want nothing special and can't even think of something special that would not apply to both straight and gay alike. Heck I never wanted anything special, don't see why I would..

Your response to Red, well I'll skip that one because I didn't understand her response.. lol''

I would be happy if at least everyone would get that we are not asking for special rights...

Also we pay taxes too, and they benefit everyone, yet we are singled out not to be allowed equal rights in this issue. Maybe I am wrong, but that doesn't seem right to me. Am I calling to stop paying taxes? No...

Nogames, do you agree with paying taxes that cover schooling for other people's kids? Just curious, I am trying to understand what kind of things you find unfair?

Nogames, does the Civil Rights Act of 1964 upset you? Is it your position that Black America should have continued to be ruled by state's laws?

Is it also your position that handicapped, women and minority religions should likewise have appealed their cases through state court systems?

Do you really believe there would have been any justice granted in some of those states if the Federal compliance act (the Civil Rights Act) had not been implemented?

I find absurd that you even bring the word morality into this discussion. No offence, just a

The division of your tax dollars is out of your hands - do you understand that? Whether you choose to support a law that would reduce oppression of a minority or not, you will pay the same and you will still have no say over the division of those funds.

The absurdity is that you somehow find it morally acceptable to allow oppression, prejudice, and discrimination, to exist simply becasue you 'think' more money would be taken out of your pocket to right the wrong.

We agree on many issues, but the reality of the situation is that we cannot rewind, we cannot undo that which already exists. Our choices are limited to working within the system or attempting to defeat it for the purpose of instituting another.

You have stuck you head in the sand over this issue,and no doubt will keep it there as new ones come up, simply because you don't agree with how things are run.

Then get your head out of the sand and find a group that feels like you do and become a part of the solution you seek. At least then I would understand why you would deny others their human rights in this matter.

To be honest I would support you and your efforts, BECASUE, I agree with you in many ways. I have personally found a group to alli with but that does not stop me from attempting to make others see a point that has validity.

I've enjoyed your discussion and hope we get the chance to find a discussion in which we both take the same side. Thanks.

guess freedom is popular...