4 ms·

What privileges are difficult-to-impossible to arrange without a legal concept of marriage? Just curious. I also believe that the root of the issue is coming fr

by dangero 14y ago

What privileges are difficult-to-impossible to arrange without a legal concept of marriage? Just curious. I also believe that the root of the issue is coming from the government being involved in the marriage conversation at all and I'm curious why that would be hard to change.

cdcarter 14y ago
Off the first hit for "marriage equality" (http://www.marriageequality.org/get-the-facts http://www.marriageequality.org/get-the-facts), here are some choice ones: * Married couples are permitted to give an unlimited amount of gifts to each other without being taxed. * The law provides certain automatic rights to a person's spouse regardless of whether or not a will exists. * With marriage, a couple has the right to be treated as an economic unit and to file joint tax returns (and pay the marriage penalty), and obtain joint health, home and auto insurance policies.
- dangero 14y ago
  OK. Thanks for the list. I think there are two issues in this "same sex marriage" debate that are being confused by people on both sides. One is the special rights and privileges given to married couples, and the other is the actual word "marriage". What I was suggesting is that the government should drop the term "marriage" from their vocabulary and change it to something else, like "domestic partnership". I highly doubt that anyone employing rational thought would suggest we can do away with the concept of mutually exclusive partnership between two people in the legal realm. Part of what the people on the right are arguing for is to not have the actual term "marriage" redefined by the government. That word has a lot of tradition and meaning. If we turn the conversation towards removing that word from the government's laws and replacing it with something that has less specific meaning to people, then the conversation is purely about equal rights and not a fight over a word and the tradition behind it. I think that's more what people are getting at when they suggest that the government shouldn't be involved in marriage.
  - henrikschroder 14y ago
    Oh, separate but equal? No.
    - dangero 14y ago
      How is that separate but equal? Who is making anyone separate? I'm suggesting the government should treat everyone the same. My understanding of "separate but equal" historically had to do with separating students based on race into separate schools. If the government were to say, "OK, call it a marriage, call it whatever you want, but 2 people can form what we call a 'domestic partnership' that creates certain legal rights by filling out this form." How is that separate but equal?
      - pbiggar 14y ago
        I think it sounded like you were saying that the new rule would be only for same-sex couples, and that opposite-sex couples would continue to call it "marriage".
        dangero 14y ago
        Ahh, I should have made that more clear the first time.
  - cdcarter 14y ago
    Unfortunately most of the marriage protection amendments also ban establishing these "separate but equal" legal arrangements as well.
madrona 14y ago
In the US, marriage makes it trivial to bring your spouse over if you are immigrating from another country. Same sex couples are split apart for very long periods of times. I have seen this happen numerous times with my LGBT friends in tech, and it frequently does bad things for their relationships (as long distance relationships often do.)
- einhverfr 14y ago
  A challenge to section 3 of DOMA has made it to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court may take it up and rule on it next term. Section 3 defines marriage for purposes of federal law. Section 2 (specifying that the full faith and credit clause does not apply to same-sex marriage), which Law Prof Andrew Koppelman suggests is roughly as effective as a ban on hunting unicorns is not before the court and if Koppelman is right (and the section does nothing anyway), will never be before the court. My prediction is that they will, and they will strike down this provision on the grounds that defining marriage has been a traditional role of state governments and that the federal government must defer to the states as to who is married and who can be married. They would then hold that there is no valid reason for the federal government to treat these differently. This decision is likely to be 7-1, 8-1, or 9-0 depending on whether Scalia dissents and whether Kagan recuses herself. The result will be that it will fully revert to a state-by-state approach and that if you are in a state which recognizes same-sex marriage you can bring your same-sex spouse over, but if you are a resident of a state which does not, you may not.
  - madrona 14y ago
    I hope so.
    - einhverfr 14y ago
      Assuming I am right, I would expect a decision striking DOMA on 10th Amendment grounds to be far more welcome on the right than the left of legal academia.....

by dangero 14y ago

cdcarter 14y ago

Off the first hit for "marriage equality" (http://www.marriageequality.org/get-the-facts http://www.marriageequality.org/get-the-facts), here are some choice ones: * Married couples are permitted to give an unlimited amount of gifts to each other without being taxed. * The law provides certain automatic rights to a person's spouse regardless of whether or not a will exists. * With marriage, a couple has the right to be treated as an economic unit and to file joint tax returns (and pay the marriage penalty), and obtain joint health, home and auto insurance policies.

dangero 14y ago
OK. Thanks for the list. I think there are two issues in this "same sex marriage" debate that are being confused by people on both sides. One is the special rights and privileges given to married couples, and the other is the actual word "marriage". What I was suggesting is that the government should drop the term "marriage" from their vocabulary and change it to something else, like "domestic partnership". I highly doubt that anyone employing rational thought would suggest we can do away with the concept of mutually exclusive partnership between two people in the legal realm. Part of what the people on the right are arguing for is to not have the actual term "marriage" redefined by the government. That word has a lot of tradition and meaning. If we turn the conversation towards removing that word from the government's laws and replacing it with something that has less specific meaning to people, then the conversation is purely about equal rights and not a fight over a word and the tradition behind it. I think that's more what people are getting at when they suggest that the government shouldn't be involved in marriage.
- henrikschroder 14y ago
  Oh, separate but equal? No.
  - dangero 14y ago
    How is that separate but equal? Who is making anyone separate? I'm suggesting the government should treat everyone the same. My understanding of "separate but equal" historically had to do with separating students based on race into separate schools. If the government were to say, "OK, call it a marriage, call it whatever you want, but 2 people can form what we call a 'domestic partnership' that creates certain legal rights by filling out this form." How is that separate but equal?
    - pbiggar 14y ago
      I think it sounded like you were saying that the new rule would be only for same-sex couples, and that opposite-sex couples would continue to call it "marriage".
      - dangero 14y ago
        Ahh, I should have made that more clear the first time.
- cdcarter 14y ago
  Unfortunately most of the marriage protection amendments also ban establishing these "separate but equal" legal arrangements as well.

madrona 14y ago

In the US, marriage makes it trivial to bring your spouse over if you are immigrating from another country. Same sex couples are split apart for very long periods of times. I have seen this happen numerous times with my LGBT friends in tech, and it frequently does bad things for their relationships (as long distance relationships often do.)

einhverfr 14y ago
A challenge to section 3 of DOMA has made it to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court may take it up and rule on it next term. Section 3 defines marriage for purposes of federal law. Section 2 (specifying that the full faith and credit clause does not apply to same-sex marriage), which Law Prof Andrew Koppelman suggests is roughly as effective as a ban on hunting unicorns is not before the court and if Koppelman is right (and the section does nothing anyway), will never be before the court. My prediction is that they will, and they will strike down this provision on the grounds that defining marriage has been a traditional role of state governments and that the federal government must defer to the states as to who is married and who can be married. They would then hold that there is no valid reason for the federal government to treat these differently. This decision is likely to be 7-1, 8-1, or 9-0 depending on whether Scalia dissents and whether Kagan recuses herself. The result will be that it will fully revert to a state-by-state approach and that if you are in a state which recognizes same-sex marriage you can bring your same-sex spouse over, but if you are a resident of a state which does not, you may not.
- madrona 14y ago
  I hope so.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    Assuming I am right, I would expect a decision striking DOMA on 10th Amendment grounds to be far more welcome on the right than the left of legal academia.....