Posted by Morbo
If you’re not married, imagine that you are. Now imagine you have been married for 30 years. Imagine your spouse is very sick and has been hospitalized. Visualize going to visit him or her and being met by members of your spouse’s family who refuse to even let you in the room. They summon hospital security and have you tossed summarily out on the street.
We all know this could not happen. Marriage gives a spouse, legal rights — rights that usually trump those held by other family members. Not only could you visit your spouse, you would probably have the power to make decisions about his or her medical care and end-of-life issues.
If you’re a gay person with a longtime partner you get none of this — unless you happen to live in a state that permits two unmarried people to make legal arrangements similar to those granted automatically to straight couples every day by virtue of the fact that they stood before a member of the clergy or a justice of the peace and said, “I do.”
The state of California has recently enacted a law like this. Predictably, the anti-gay bigots are going insane. “Whether you call it ‘domestic partnerships’ or ‘civil unions,’ homosexual marriage by another name is still homosexual marriage, and the people of California voted against that,” Randy Thomasson, executive director of the group Campaign for California Families, told the AP. The Campaign has filed suit to block the new law.
Just in case there was any doubt, this is pretty much proof positive that the forces leading the anti-gay marriage crusade want to go way beyond simply stopping same-gender unions. They seek to deny gay people the basic rights straights take for granted every day — like the right to leave your property to your partner in the case of death without first jumping through 60 legal hoops.
This isn’t about marriage. Gays can’t get married in California. What the anti-gay movement wants to do is take the next step and deny states the right to grant gays anything that is remotely like marriage — even if what is offered to gays is a pale imitation of what would be considered acceptable by straight couples.
Morbo would like to know why so many people get so worked up about the fact that gay people exist.
As a kid, I was as rude and thoughtless as anyone over this issue. Yes, I made lame gay jokes, used the word “gay” as an adjective for anything bad and generally behaved like an unthinking twit. But I had an excuse: I was 14. As I got older and engaged the world as an adult, I met some actual gay people and made the great leap of understanding: Some of them were great and some were jerks. Wow, just like everyone else!
And I just don’t buy that gays are a threat to children. Child molesters, heterosexual or homosexual, are a threat to children — not all gay people.
You know what else is a threat to children? Leaving them a county that bites. I have two children, and I worry about their future. Will I be able to save enough to get them through college without me and/or them assuming crushing debt? Will there be good jobs when they are grown? Will Social Security still exist? Will we ever have health care?
Yes, I worry a lot. Hey, it’s what parents do. (Yes, it’s right in the manual!) But one thing I don’t worry about is whether two gay men or women are going to buy a house next door, list both names on the mortgage and start landscaping the place. I really can’t see getting worked up over the fact that two men who have lived together for 20 years have a joint banking account. Call me a radical, but I believe that when your partner of many years is sick, you ought to be able to go visit him or her in the hospital.
So, to the Randy Thomassons of the world, I suppose I can only offer one thought: Isn’t it time you grew up?