Give me equal rights….

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.

• Hospital Visitation Rights – Married couples have the automatic right to visit each other in the hospital and make medical decisions. Same sex couples can be denied the right to visit a sick or injured partner in the hospital.
• Health insurance – Same-sex couples have no automatic right to visit one another in the hospital or make medical decisions for one another. Having medical power of attorney documents may help, but there’s no guarantee and hospital will recognize those documents.
• Spousal Privilege – Same-sex couples have no right to refuse to testify against one another. So everything you say, write, email, fax, etc. to your partner is admissible in court and can be used against. you.
• Inheritance rights – Same-sex couples have no automatic rights to inheritance in the absence of a will.
• Family leave – Same-sex couples have no legally protected right to unpaid leave to care for an ill spouse.
• Pensions – Most pension plans only pay survivor benefits to a legal spouse. Same-sex partners get no pension support for surviving partners.
• Nursing homes – Same-sex couples have no legal right to live together in a nursing home and spend their final years together.
• Home protection – The laws that protect married couples from being forced to sell their homes to cover high nursing home bills don’t apply to same-sex couples. A same-sex partner can be forced to sell, and forced out of the home to satisfy nursing home bills if he/she lives in the home but does not own it.
• Retirement savings – Married people can roll over a deceased spouses 401(k) into an IRA without paying taxes. Same-sex partners must withdraw everything, pay income taxes on it, and lose the tax deferral benefits.
• Taxes – Married spouses may inherit unlimited property from a deceased spouse, tax free. Same-sex partners pay taxes on any amount over set state and federal limits.
• Social Security benefits – Unless you’re married, you get no Social Security from a dead spouse. If you have kids, they will get it and you may be custodian of it until they’re adults.

Allow me to add one more: Married couples can apply to be in the Peace Corps together, and, barring the possibility of rejection, are guaranteed placement at the same location. I don’t think I have to tell you that the same does not apply for same-sex couples.

Honestly, I don’t see how the U.S. Government, the same entity that is supposed to be a paragon of separation of church and state, can do this with the Equal Protection clause located right in the 14th amendment of the Constitution, the basis for all laws and court rulings.

These issues can be fixed quite easily, though: instead of changing all of the laws to include same-sex couples, just give them the right to acquire a marriage license. Oh, no, we can’t do that… marriage is a religious institution, and the government doesn’t have the right to define what constitutes a marriage and what doesn’t, so say the religious leaders.

Ok, fine. Next proposal: remove any reference to marriage from the laws. Why? Well, quite simply, if marriage is a religious institution, as stated by all of the religious people, then why is the government even dealing with it? If it’s only to promote the institution (because, according to some sociologists, two parents that are together are usually more beneficial to children than one), then there should be no problem with changing the name of it to, say, “civil union,” and, because civil unions are not religiously based, their definition can be made to include same-sex couples.

Once you get a civil union (and are united in the eyes of the law), go ahead and have your marriage ceremony at a church or temple or wherever. And trust me, the number of these ceremonies will not decrease simply because they’re not necessary. They aren’t necessary today what with the ability to be joined in marriage by a justice of the peace, but traditionalist-churchey weddings are still very common.

But wait, if civil unions can be granted to anybody, what’s gonna stop people from marrying animals or children? Well, look at it through the eyes of the government: children and animals are not really considered “people.” Children can’t sign a legally binding contract without their parents’ consent nor do they have any useful legal standing, and animals aren’t recognized as intellegent sentient beings by the government, and as such don’t have a legal standing either. Logically, beyond the obvious pedophilia/zoophilia issues, do you think anyone would want a child or animal making such important decisions as whether the hospital continues respiration treatment if they’re in a vegitative state? Zing, there goes that argument.

The point I’m trying to make here, in case you haven’t gotten it yet, is that officials in the government are naming marriage as a religious institution to prevent major alterations in its definition, simultaneously stomping on the constitution by conveniently ignoring certain parts. The ones that recognize the hypocrisy of this are frantically scrambling to come up with secular explanations of this position, but none of them are very convincing. Here is the list (including some sarcastic remarks), this particular one from craigslist:

• Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
• Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
• Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
• Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
• Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
• Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
• Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
• Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America, and why we fought to separate ourselves from the completely secular British Empire in the Revolution.
• Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
• Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector of the economy, or longer life spans.

So there you have it. If your argument against the governmental recognition of same-sex unions had absolutely nothing to do with religion, the above list should have been a wake-up call. If it does have to do with religion, I ask you: do we live in a theocracy? Uh, no. Governmentally-imposed laws come first, religious laws come second. Oppressing a group through state and federal laws because it is written in the Bible to do so is an extremely asinine (and illegal) thing to do in a democracy.

Let’s theoretically swap percentages really quick, to prove a point: approximately 0.6% of the US population is Muslim, and 81.1% is Christian (wikipedia). Swap it, and you have a huge Muslim majority. Islamic fundamentalists, as reported in a previous post, have denounced some of the clauses of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; one of these they decry as inherently false is the concept of separation of church and state. Essentially they believe that religion is very necessary in government. Now imagine that the number of people who are against same-sex unions (essentially the fundamentalist Christian group) were instead Islamic Fundamentalists. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll assume the population ratio of the whole religion versus the fundamentalists is about the same with Christians and Muslims. Think now that this population instead voted with equal conviction that the government should be converted to a theocracy (an issue they care deeply about), and thereby adopting many Muslim rules and regulations that are highly oppressing of the religious minorities. Would you be in favor of this? I know I wouldn’t. One problem: it’s happening here, now in the form of many Christians voting in accordance with their religious convictions. A little hypocritical, huh?

I think lack of information regarding homosexuality is the main culprit surrounding the issue, though. A majority of the 81% Christian population don’t base their judgement on what the Bible says, but rather look at the gays who are present in the media and are disgusted by what they see. Who can blame them? The pride parades in San Fran are nothing but gay men wearing leather assless-chaps and lesbians without a top on. The message they say they send is one of “we’re just like you, and we want to have a normal family just like the rest of the US” (which, for the majority of gays, is the truth) but the message that’s getting through is more along the lines of “we’re sex-crazed maniacs leading lives very different from the stereotypical American.”

These people also don’t ask themselves the one question that would help them understand the situation. Generally they grow up in a straight environment, learning of homosexuality only once they are older (and most of the time through the common usage of the term “gay” as an adjective for anything that is bad, irritating, or generally negative, and thus applying the same connotation to the original definition). Even the most open minded soul, when brought up in this environment, is going to denounce homosexuality as evil. They simply can’t fathom why anyone would be attracted to the same sex, and, as it isn’t a very important subject for them, they don’t spend much time thinking about it. The issue is then written off as just a cry for attention, or to be different.

To these people who ask me “How do you know?”, I respond with the following: Suspend reality for a moment and imagine yourself in a world run by and populated with homosexuals. Your parents are gay, your friends are gay, everyone’s gay. The religion you were brought up in denounces the straight lifestyle as one of sin, requiring a punishment of eternal damnation. This is what they know, and they can’t comprehend anything else. Now suppose you are no different than you are in this reality. Completely straight, with straight urges, mannerisms, and opinions. You have a lot of options, but generally they fall in the following categories: 1) denounce the straight lifestyle and marry someone of the same sex; 2) avoid the issue entirely, refuse to confront it, and live a lonely life of celibacy; or 3) announce to family and friends your sexual preference, find someone with whom you wish to share your life with, and live happily ever after. Which would you choose? Think carefully about every detail of each option, and get back to me. I am interested in your choice.

Even though you may not admit it, your choice is probably going to be #3. #1 is, in all likelihood, a pretty disgusting proposition for you due to the graphic details of attempting to satisfy yourself and partner intimately, and #2 is highly undesirable considering the natural human need for companionship. This places #3 as the logical choice because, religion notwithstanding, it satisfies you and your prospective companion, it hurts nobody physically, and if it is problematic emotionally for your family or friends, that’s their problem.

Seriously, I can’t find any holes in my argument. If you think I’m wrong, tell me why! I enjoy a good intellectual joust as much–no, probably more than–the average person. This issue also personally affects me, and the fact that religious bigots in the government make decisions without utilizing logic before their religious convictions upsets me more than anything. After presenting the above evidence, I would honestly love to hear how someone justifies their opinion, if its different. Also, I haven’t had any comments on the site yet, and I’m waiting for someone to break it in !