为什么同性恋结婚是Civial Rights issues# WaterWorld - 未名水世界
s*n
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Why This Is A Civil Rights Issue
When gay people say that this is a civil rights issue, we are referring to
matters like the fact that we cannot make medical decisions for our partners
in an emergency. Instead, the hospitals are usually forced by state laws to
go to the families who may be estranged from us for decades, who are often
hostile to us, and totally ignore our wishes for the treatment of our
partners. If that hostile family wishes to exclude us from the hospital room
, they may legally do so in nearly all cases. It is even not uncommon for
hostile families to make decisions based on their hostility -- with results
actually intended to be inimical to the interests of the patient! One couple
I know uses the following line in the "sig" lines on their email: "...
partners and lovers for 40 years, yet still strangers before the law." Is
this fair?
If our partners are arrested, we can be compelled to testify against them or
provide evidence against them, which legally married couples are not forced
to do. Is this fair?
International married couples can usually pick which country in which to
reside, with barely a thought about the law. Gay couples who are not married
are not recognized in immigration law in most countries, and therefore
cannot enter a partner's country to reside under "family reunion"
immigration laws. Is that fair?
For married couples, it is a given that one parent or both can simply get on
an airplane and take their child to another state if they wish. If you are
gay, but unmarried, you cannot do so; you must get a written, notarized
document of permission from the legal parent or gardian of the child before
the child will be let on an airplane. Even if you are permanently parenting
the child. Married heterosexuals are never asked for such a document. Is
this fair?
In most cases, even carefully drafted wills and durable powers of attorney
have proven to not be enough if a family wishes to challenge a will,
overturn a custody decision, or exclude us from a funeral or deny us the
right to visit a partner's grave. As survivors, they can even sieze a real
estate property that we may have been buying together for years, quickly
sell it at a huge loss and stick us with the remaining debt on a property we
no longer own. When these are presented to a homophobic probate judge, he
will usually find some pretext to overturn them. Is this fair?
These aren't just theoretical issues, either; they happen with surprising
frequency. Almost any older gay couple can tell you horror stories of
themselves or friends who have been victimized in such ways and many others.
These are all civil rights issues that have nothing whatever to do with the
ecclesiastical origins of marriage; they are matters that have become
enshrined in state and federal laws over the years in many ways that exclude
us from the rights that legally married couples enjoy and consider their
constitutional right. This is why we say it is very much a civil rights
issue; it has nothing to do with who performs the ceremony or whether an
announcement is accepted for publication in the local paper. It is not a
matter of "special rights" to ask for the same rights that other couples
enjoy by law, even by constitutional mandate.
When gay people say that this is a civil rights issue, we are referring to
matters like the fact that we cannot make medical decisions for our partners
in an emergency. Instead, the hospitals are usually forced by state laws to
go to the families who may be estranged from us for decades, who are often
hostile to us, and totally ignore our wishes for the treatment of our
partners. If that hostile family wishes to exclude us from the hospital room
, they may legally do so in nearly all cases. It is even not uncommon for
hostile families to make decisions based on their hostility -- with results
actually intended to be inimical to the interests of the patient! One couple
I know uses the following line in the "sig" lines on their email: "...
partners and lovers for 40 years, yet still strangers before the law." Is
this fair?
If our partners are arrested, we can be compelled to testify against them or
provide evidence against them, which legally married couples are not forced
to do. Is this fair?
International married couples can usually pick which country in which to
reside, with barely a thought about the law. Gay couples who are not married
are not recognized in immigration law in most countries, and therefore
cannot enter a partner's country to reside under "family reunion"
immigration laws. Is that fair?
For married couples, it is a given that one parent or both can simply get on
an airplane and take their child to another state if they wish. If you are
gay, but unmarried, you cannot do so; you must get a written, notarized
document of permission from the legal parent or gardian of the child before
the child will be let on an airplane. Even if you are permanently parenting
the child. Married heterosexuals are never asked for such a document. Is
this fair?
In most cases, even carefully drafted wills and durable powers of attorney
have proven to not be enough if a family wishes to challenge a will,
overturn a custody decision, or exclude us from a funeral or deny us the
right to visit a partner's grave. As survivors, they can even sieze a real
estate property that we may have been buying together for years, quickly
sell it at a huge loss and stick us with the remaining debt on a property we
no longer own. When these are presented to a homophobic probate judge, he
will usually find some pretext to overturn them. Is this fair?
These aren't just theoretical issues, either; they happen with surprising
frequency. Almost any older gay couple can tell you horror stories of
themselves or friends who have been victimized in such ways and many others.
These are all civil rights issues that have nothing whatever to do with the
ecclesiastical origins of marriage; they are matters that have become
enshrined in state and federal laws over the years in many ways that exclude
us from the rights that legally married couples enjoy and consider their
constitutional right. This is why we say it is very much a civil rights
issue; it has nothing to do with who performs the ceremony or whether an
announcement is accepted for publication in the local paper. It is not a
matter of "special rights" to ask for the same rights that other couples
enjoy by law, even by constitutional mandate.
