40 years after Stonewall, and we still don't have marriage equality. The excerpt below, from NYS senate bill S66003, explains the situation of many of you in the good old USA, and/or your friends and members of your family quite well. I took this photo at Gay Pride 2009 in NYC.
Partners unable to enter into a civil marriage - and their children - lack basic legal protections taken for granted by married couples. In such areas as property ownership, inheritance, health care, hospital visitation, taxation, insurance coverage, child custody, pension benefits and testimonial privileges, married couples receive important safe-guards against the loss or injury of a spouse, and crucial assurances against legal intrusion into their marital privacy. As important, unions lacking the State's recognition are denoted, by force of law, as somehow not equal to other comparable relationships. Civil marriage is the means by which the State defines a couple's place in society. Those who are excluded from its rubric are told by the institutions of the State, in essence, that their solemn commitment to one another has no legal weight.
5 days ago
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