Comments on: What Rights Should Same-Sex Couples Have?

By: Aimee J

Aimee J — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:58:30 +0000

Love is love, and marriage should be marriage.
Even though I’m Canadian and gay marriage is legal everywhere here, I still can’t help but get into these gay rights debates.

Gay couples and straight couples, black, whites, and overall, people in general, should all have the same rights! We’re all human beings? Just because our skin is a different colour, or the one we love is the same gender does not make us any less human. We still feel, think, and live the same way everyone else does.

We all have our differences, and many times we don’t like every person we come across. But what happened to judging a person for who they were? I’m sorry, but when I meet someone I don’t want to hand them a survey asking their religion, political views, sexual orientation, etc. It’s absolutely ridiculous!

A gay couple is still a couple, and should be allowed the same basic right as any other couple; the right to marry.

Gay couples should not be offered any rights that are different from that of a straight couple! If your wife/husband is in the hospital, do you want to shift through a bunch of paper work to say, yes you can see your loved one? Do you want to have to drive back home to get the proper papers while your loved one is possibly on their death bed? I’m sorry, but I should be able to walk in, holding my loved one’s hand, without the need to worry if I’m allowed to be there or not!

Gays and lesbians shouldn’t be treated any differently then anyone else. Love shouldn’t be a crime, nor should it make you any different in the eyes of society, or anyone for that matter. You shouldn’t have to hide who you are from your closest friends and family for fear of whether they will accept you. You being gay, or someone else being gay, doesn’t hurt anyone! They’re still people, and it’s still a family…. we should still be allowed our human rights, even if someone doesn’t agree with our idea of love.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 02:30:06 +0000

I haven’t seen mention that the state you die in decides your estate distribution, not your state of residence. So, your partner whom you legally wed in California, dies while traveling through Utah, and Utah doesn’t recognize your legal relationship in California. Seems messed up to me! That’s a reason to hold other states to the full faith and credit clause of our constitution.

By: Jackie

Jackie — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:23:27 +0000

In my opinion the government should only be able to legalize “civil unions” for any couple…gay, straight or purple. Then marriages could be a strictly religious covenent. It would be the same as now…you get your marriage lic. and take it to your priest, judge, or shaman and when it is FILED the state acknowledges your ‘union’. As far as the “gay people will ruin the institution”, wake up heteros have already wrecked it.
The children of gay couples need the protection of the state in the event of a breakup. I believe that “common law” distinctions should also cover gay relationships.
Our government is here to govern people. God will sort souls without help from us.
Straight, white, mother, meat eating, Christian,

By: Donnie

Donnie — Thu, 17 May 2007 13:44:34 +0000

I’m glad I live in Ohio, its a Super-DOMA state, gays have absolutely NO RIGHTS WHAT SO EVER. Gays shouldn’t have the right to anything in any state. In Ohio I can fire you or kick evict you for being gay and gays can’t do anything about it it. They have NO Insurance rights, NO spousal rights, NO SS, NO pension, NO hospital rights, NO retirement, NO home protection, and most of all NO gay marriage. All of that is due to Ohio voters. No one wants gays in Ohio, some don’t even want them in the US, including me, ship them to France.

By: Raybob

Raybob — Sat, 12 May 2007 17:32:43 +0000

To the straight gentleman above who has had trouble in the past being with his wife during emergency or planned procedures who says that this is not a Federally mandated problem is wrong. This falls under HIPAA regulations, a statute entered by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2003. I work in a hospital doing massage therapy, and we are subject to these very restrictive and at times bizarre regulations. HIPAA is why the who-can-be-with-me list exists.

By: Christina

Christina — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:37:09 +0000

Seems to me there are a couple of sides to this. I am not gay and I am realizing the tendency of those who are not to want to preserve the heterosexual marriage tradition, what’s ‘biologically’ right, etc..

Unfortunately the tradition is simply that. There are lesbian lizards, and indeed all kinds of homosexual behavior can be seen in most other genuses(genii?) of the animal kingdom. (45% of sexual encounters between elephants in captivity are female/female or male/male). How could we be any different? How could gay be any less biologically right than straight?

A gay couple I’m friends with refer to each other as ’spouse.’ I think this name is accurate.

And yet we need to know that there are very real feelings against gay marriage and that we cannot dismiss offhand these feelings; or if we do, we do so at our (legislative etc.) peril.

I am watching this debate with the hope that all sides can be taken in, heard & seen clearly and that ultimately we as a society will give the rights to people who, due to their status and living situation - whatever it may be - deserve them.

By: Give me equal rights…. « Political Musings from a College Freshman

Give me equal rights…. « Political Musings from a College Freshman — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:34:04 +0000

[...] 26th, 2007 · No Comments Following up on the previous post, I am putting up a list of rights gay couples do not have(especially here in Virginia) that I stumbled across a few days ago at The Republic of T. [...]

By: jen

jen — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 17:26:49 +0000

I have been following this case now for close to 4 years. I know both of the parties and find it not only absurd but a waste of tax payers money not to speak of all the anguish subjected to them and there families.

Were talking about a 20 year relationship they shared, It would seem that over 600k each, should be enough to make either party happy.

So guys stop the insanity and settle!!!!!

Gay breakup heads to court in Paulding County

Original Article Published by the Southern Voice:

Lack of marriage rights hurts gay couples when they split, attorney says
By DYANA BAGBY
Friday, October 14, 2005
For 20 years, Mark Bengtson shared his life with Timothy Quinn and said he believed they would be together forever.
The two settled in Paulding County and purchased a home together in Acworth in 1998.
But three years ago, their long-term relationship soured, and the two split. On Dec. 10, 2002, a month following the breakup, their house and much of what they owned was destroyed by fire.
Now the former couple is battling in court over what remains of their assets, without the benefit of divorce procedures available when heterosexual marriages dissolve.
Quinn filed a civil lawsuit against Bengtson in January 2004 in Paulding County Superior Court, and Bengtson countersued in March 2004. The case is scheduled for trial Nov. 14.

Dyana Bagby can be reached at dbagby@sovo.com.

For the full story: http://sovo.com/2005/10-14/new.....reakup.cfm

By: Tabitha

Tabitha — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 01:24:42 +0000

I agree with you meriblog. I just think that if two people want we call marriage then let them do it,if it were only on a religious stand point then there would be no state laws to begin with in a marriage between a man and a woman,so it seems to be alot of branwashing anyway,so why not just have all people come together and be able to have the same type of marriage if they want to, no matter what sex they are,alot of people don’t like the idea of interracial marriage,and people have even turned couples away and will not marry them because of this,isn’t it the same concept,they still marry out of love,why not let the lesbian’s/gays do the same,this thing to me seems to be just someone in an higher-power trying to have some sort of control of people or are trying to benefit from this and I think its ridiculous because don’t we also have freedom of religion also so not everyone even believes the same way so it has to be separate (state/religion).

By: mythago

mythago — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 03:30:35 +0000

If it doesn’t overly change the legal landscape

Except that, of course, it does. There are umpty-ump laws that refer to “marriage”, and trying to create a parallel track for same-sex couples that has everything except the M-word is a full-employment act for a generation of lawyers.

I apologize if this was mentioned previously, but married couples also have the legal right to sue for loss of consortium. Same-sex couples do not.