OlderButWiser Wrote:Excuse my ignorance here, but what does SCOTUS stand for?
And given that SSM is recognised in a number of non US countries, what would your status be should you get married overseas then return to the US? (Your other partner could be a non US citizen)
There is a lot of noise here in the UK about SSM. Currently we have a Civil Partnership, which is recognised throughout the land, where you are effectively married in everything but name, and have all the legal rights of a straight marriage. You can even have a church blessing if thats your fancy (although not in all churches though)
There is a very vocal minority in the UK who seem to have taken up the SSM cause as an absolute right, to the point that it does make me a little uncomfortable, but they see it as a fundamental right, no exceptions.
Me, Im happy to have full legal "married" status and entitlements without having the right to demanding that the church recognise me as being married. Maybe thats just me, but I do suspect there is a larger (silent) majority of gay couples who are very content with how far things have come over the past 7 years.
ObW
This case is precisely what happened to Michael, a once member of this site... He is American, and fell in love twenty-two years ago with his German boyfriend; they lived in Germany for a long long time. Now Fred, his partner (husband, they got civilly partnered under German legislation) and he have gone back to live in the US, but Florida, for the moment, does not recognise gay marriage. He was really very angry about the fact that his lawfully wedded husband and he had to go through separate doors at customs upon arrival, as if they were just two disconnected entities. I can understand why Michael is still so vocal about getting these rights recognised in every state of his homeland. Rightly so.
For me and my partner, the laws of both our countries are too different for us to make a choice. The French civil partnerships (PACS) do not cover what the British civil partnerships cover (as you so wisely pointed out, ObW, they are akin to marriage in every respect save name) because they only recognise certain aspects of the partnership here. Aspects linked to inheritance etc, would still have to be treated as if both of us were single.
I'm looking forward to our new government taking that extra step that will give us equality of treatment with straight marriages, even if it does bear another name, something that would put both our homelands on par in terms of legislation and recognition.
I would, however, like for there to be just one name for the institution. Some blab on and on about marriage being ''the union of a man and a woman'' and the basis for families etc... because biologically, etc... Well, yes, maybe so, and maybe it was so in the past. But things have evolved. They come from all the progress we've made technologically in IVF, in surrogacy, in the ability of women to control and plan childbirth, and to lend their bodies, if they will, to a couple who can't conceive (and this is not only for gays). While we can't change the biology of a man and woman being the only way to conceive another human being, the ways of conceiving that human being have been drastically changed, enough for Lesbian couples to have children, enough for infertile couples to reproduce, enough (why not?) for two gay men to reproduce. Otherwise, all these couples could adopt.
One case that I heard of on the radio the other day had a lesbian couple (partnered today, I assume) who had each on their own adopted two Tahitian sisters. But because these children were adopted by two single people, who at the time could not be partnered or wedded, these sisters don't bear the same family name, even though all four of them have been living as a family unit for the past 25 or more years. Today the two mums could share a name through the PACS but the children would still bear different names (the maiden names of each of their mothers). Similarly, I think there would be difficulties in terms of inheritance, one of the daughters not being recognised as the daughter of one of the mothers and vice-versa. These are situations that already exist ipso facto and have existed for 30 odd years, or more. Why don't these children (now adults) have the right to have a family like everybody else, and the right to enjoy similar rights in terms of inheritance? By the way, in France children can't be disowned by their parents, it's the law. Similarly, because they bear different names, the sister could almost, technically speaking, not be considered as sisters, even though they were conceived by the same Tahitian parents.
It seems to me that those who oppose SSM and gay adoption are so aware of all the crap that they put us through, that they can only imagine how difficult they will make life for a newborn, whether adopted or conceived artificially in a gay couple. If they really cared for children, as they purport, they would try to place as many adoptees in loving families, regardless of the parents' sexual orientation. All of this just smacks of ignorance, a failure to see reality as it is in our modern societies, discrimination and an absence of love for their fellow human beings (and I mean the children, first and foremost).
Why are straights allowed to produce so many babies that they DON'T WANT if they're so worried about how children will be brought up and cared for? In this day and age, it just doesn't make sense to have so many uncared-for children. It is revolting and shocking.
The president and gay marriage
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