First of all, take a look at the true reality of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts. How can a marriage that is not recognized by the country or most other states be considered “equal?” Are equal benefits and protections important or not?
If a person can just move out of state and not be married anymore, how married are they? If the government of their country considers them legal strangers, how married are they?
Actual couples are hurt by this, they will not get federal social security survivor benefits, they do not have security that their spouse is legally committed to them and would have to legally dissolve their partnership in court to settle financial and property issues. They can be abandoned because their marriage is meaningless in other states.
Because of your insistence on the word “marriage” and giving marriage’s conception rights to same-sex couples, it is very unlikely that this situation will change. Your position harms people in same-sex committed relationships across the country and does not gain them anything in return.
BMG could change this, it could promote my “egg and sperm compromise” which would grant federal recognition of state civil unions in exchange for conceding that same-sex couples should not have marriage’s conception rights. Civil unions that did not grant marriage’s conception rights could be enacted in all fifty states and given full faith and credit, requiring dissolution.
I do believe that BMG could give this idea legs and get it enacted in Congress. Do people think conception rights for same-sex couples are more important right now?
is another day that married same-sex couples do not get the benefits and protections of marriage.
it’s really a travesty of justice that same-sex marriages in Massachusetts do not have close to the equal benefits and protections of other married couples, and the people who are supposedly their protectors are instead ignoring their plight and just thinking of their own high-school level ideological arguments.
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We could get this solution through Congress before the 2008 elections, so that the candidates don’t have to pander to anyone on this issue, or hide from anyone. There is no excuse for putting it off, we should see if we have the votes in Congress to extend federal protections of marriage to same-sex civil unions.
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All anyone stands to lose is the right to conceive with another person of their same sex.