Jophiel wrote:
The point is that they are part of the package because you are married. You don't sign a bunch of special power of attorney and inheritance documents when you get wed, you just get wed. You don't get a briefcase full of papers stating that you have this that or the other power. You simply have them as the married partner. Likewise, when you get divorced, your ex-spouse does not retain power of attorney et al because you are no longer married, not because you specifically dissolved those civil arrangements. Therefore, if I entered a state where I was no longer married, I would lose those benefits because... wait for it... I'm no longer married.
That's because we tie both things together. The act of a legally recognized marriage automatically binds both partners to a set of pre-defined civil contracts. If that were not the case, then prenuptual agreements would not legally work. The fact that they do means that there is a set of default civil contracts entered into when you marry, and if you want something different, you have to get a separate contract that overrides the default one.
The process of a divorce similarly disolves not just the legal status, but the civil contracts as well. Actually, it doesn't disolve them all either, since parental rights aren't disolved, nor are parental responsibilities. Clearly, the legal status of marriage and the civil contracts associated with marriage are two separate things. We just tend to lump them together by default, so we tend to forget that they really are separate legal constructs.
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And why do those benefits carry over from state to state? Because, as I mentioned, states have an obligation to acknowledge contracts formed in other states as valid. There's nothing magical about the "civil contract aspects" (as you call them) of marriage except that a bunch of people get flustered that homosexuals may call themselves "married". You yourself say that the same benefits can be gained via other legal channels and would be considered valid from state to state to state. If I sign the papers to give my homosexual partner power of attorney over me, it holds solid when we go to Nebraska or Utah or Vermont. So why should having the same "civil contract aspects" be a burden upon state sovereignty if I gain them under the auspice of marriage? Again, the only reasons to complain about it are strictly moralistic ones.
They wouldn't be. That's the point I'm arguing here Joph. The "burden" isn't in the civil contracts. I'm not burdened one bit if a gay couple have joint power of attorney, or joint inheritance, or joint guardianship of their children. I *am* burdened if that couple gets to file their taxes under one of the "married" collumns. I *am* burdened if I live in a state that provides home loan discounts to married couples and a gay couple claims that discount. I *am* burdened if I live in a state that provides any sort of financial benefit to married couples. In all of those cases, I'm paying for those things. Every penny that a gay couple does not pay in taxes because they are married is a penny that will have to be paid by someone else. That's a burden the public pays based on specific assumptions about what a marriag is, and why they may need to provide those benefits.
That's what I'm trying to get at here. There is a distinct difference between the civil contract of marriage and the legal status. One is simply between the parties of the contract. The other is provided by the state and comes at a cost to the entire people of that state. Thus, it seems very reasonable to look at those two aspects of marriage separately when considering gay marriage.