niobia wrote:
The Glorious Atomicflea wrote:
I'm constantly fascinated by how left out of our laws the GLBT community really is. Most of the civil protections that we take for granted are not accorded to them. As Ambryra alluded, the Fair Housing Act does not protect against discrimination due to sexual orientation.
You are also forgetting that if the beloved were to pass on, normally the spouse would inherite everything but if you are Gay/Bi/Lesbian/Transgendered it's pretty difficult. I had a close friend who was with her partner for over 20 years and the partner passed on, she's still fighting with the family to get treasured photo albums back.
And in those 20 years, did they ever bother to do something truely radical like fill out a Will? Or file power of attorney forms?
This happens with married couples as well. If you don't have a will, then everyone related to the deceased can fight over the belongings. Being a spouse only automatically grants you control and ownership over those things you already jointly owned (like homes, cars, businesses, health club memberships, etc... that are in both names). Every other possession *can* be fought in court. Or have you never heard of Anna Nicole Smith? Obviously marriage alone does not ensure inheritance.
Stop trying to imply this only happens to gay couples. It happens to *any* couple that does not make their legal wishes known though a legal document of some kind.
And Ambrya. You keep going on about separate but equal. But that's just rhetoric. I could as easily say that any two legal statuses are wrong because they aren't exactly the same. If they exist for two different reasons and do different things, then it's completely correct for them to be different.
My current legal status is "single". Should I be offended because I'm given a different status then married people? Because I'm discriminated against? Should I chant "separate but equal is wrong!" over and over as a way to protest my lack of rights?
I don't because I accept that my status *is* different. And that status *needs* different things. And therefore it's completely correct for my status to grant different rights and benefits then a married status. Get it?
I've already gone over in detail how and why a hetero couple differs in needs from a gay couple. I'm not going to do it again. Let's just accept that there are differences, and there are legitimate reasons why one might *need* more things from their legal status then the others, and drop the act that they should be treated identically in all ways.