Their civil union rights do not give them the same rights as a marriage would give them.
they assumed they had access to a right
Their civil union rights do not give them the same rights as a marriage would give them.
There was no assumption; it was a right. People were legally married.
How so?
Can they still own a home together?
Is that right *now* being yanked from them?
Can they still have medical insurance together? Is that right *now* being yanked from them?
Can they still own a car together?
Can they bequeath their estate to their marital companion(s)? Is that right being yanked from them?
Can they still visit sick spouses in hospitals? Is that now being yanked from them?
If they adopted kids, are the kids being *now* yanked from them?
Have any kids been yanked from them?
How so?
I don't know each and every difference, but the main one that comes to mind is that unlike marriage, domestic partnerships are only recognized in the state where the papers are filed. And they are not recognized at all on a federal level, so you can't file a join tax return as domestic partners.
To tack onto that as a "for instance," I know that if your employer provides health benefits for a domestic partnership, you get taxed on that benefit because the federal government doesn't recognize the partnership. It's called "imputed income."
Rights and responsibilities of marriages in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This Wikipedia entry provides a partial listing of what marriage entails at the federal level in the US. Note, from the introduction:
According to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), there are over a thousand federal laws that treat married people differently from single people. It should be noted that these rights and responsibilities apply only to male-female married couples, as the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defines marriage as between a man and a woman and thus bars same-sex couples from receiving any federal recognition of same sex marriage or conveyance of marriage benefits to same sex couples through federal marriage law.
That's right; they'd only be valid in the individual states that recognize them (and then only in terms of state law).
The majority of the people who voted in Calif. for Prop 8 feel ..... a few judges misinterpreted the law.
Yes, we usually let the legally uneducated public decide on the correct interpretation of the law.
Apparently we do in California.Yes, we usually let the legally uneducated public decide on the correct interpretation of the law.
There were several replies to this earlier in the thread:
So as you can see, they do not have equal rights as it stands right now.
The majority of the people who voted in Calif. for Prop 8 feel Mayor Newsom and a few judges misinterpreted the law.
So, even though my state's Constitution has an equal protection clause, gay couples shouldn't expect equal protection under the law in my state? The laws don't apply to them equally?
You didn't answer my questions.
Simple question: how would you feel if you had been denied the right to marry your wife, the woman you love? Can you just imagine that for a moment? Have you ever tried? Why wasn't a civil union enough for you?
It's already happened, let me explain.
In my faith, we marry for eternity. She is not of my faith, so I had a decision to make: we both understood we could only be married for time.
I could have ended our relationship, or married her for "until death due us part" like other Orthodox Christian faiths do.
In our faith we can choose between the two.
That's what we did we married for time-by a Mormon Bishop.
She holds no animosity to Mormons because we weren't married the traditional Mormon way (for eternity) nor does she think that Mormons are bigoted- like many mean spirited posters have suggested here.
She's made good LDS friends that don't try to prosletyze her and accept her for who she is. We are not looked down by not having an Eternal Marriage.
She's different from me, beautiful and I love her for it.
<>
You didn't answer my questions.
yes, i did-but not in the way you had hoped.
<>
How so?
Can they still own a home together?
Is that right *now* being yanked from them?
Can they still have medical insurance together? Is that right *now* being yanked from them?
Can they still own a car together?
Can they bequeath their estate to their marital companion(s)? Is that right being yanked from them?
Can they still visit sick spouses in hospitals? Is that now being yanked from them?
If they adopted kids, are the kids being *now* yanked from them?
Have any kids been yanked from them?
Because Prop 8 passed are all of these things now null and void?
Of course the answer is no to all of the above questions.
At the very most, certificates will be changed on what type of matrimonal relationship or civil union they entered into designating what the realtionships actually are: every other legal aspect should and will remain in tact.
If anything changes are made other than that: let me know.
<>