ND joins the 20th century...

[acroyear]

Now if only they'd join the 21st...
N.D. Senate OKs cohabitation law change - Yahoo! News:

Living together out of wedlock would be downgraded from a sex crime to fraud, and then only if the couple claims to be married, under a proposal that passed the state Senate on Friday.

The bill was changed from an outright repeal of the state's anti-cohabitation law. The amended proposal would make the false representation of marital status a misdemeanor crime for a man and woman who live together.

Cohabiting couples who do not falsely claim marriage would not be penalized.

[...]

"This is, in fact, the 21st century, and I believe it's time to put to rest this 19th-century legislation," said state Sen. Tracy Potter.

Gee, that's nice. As the article says, its not like this "sex crime" blue law had been enforced in years, though the accusations enough can cause havoc as we all know.  In fact, it was probably out of fear that calling it a "sex crime" bumped it up to "cruel and unusual punishment" since that would put their names into the national sex offenders registry, associating them with rapists and child porn convicts.  Doesn't THAT make sense?

Now tell me why it's "fraud" to merely "claim" to be married? What is "claimed" anyways?

If you're expecting any one of those 375 benefits of marriage (according to a New York appeals court) that are built into the legal system (custody protection, visitation rights and medical authorizations, tax filing status, joint property ownership, automatic insurance beneficiary, automatic inheritance, 5th amendment spousal privilege and a whole lot more) and you don't have that license, then fine - you're being fraudulent.  The law remains the law regarding those automatic protections (protections that you can't even enforce through legal personal contract in Ohio, Michigan, or Virginia thanks to the lies of the right-wing nutballs - lying for Christ, God I love it.  Really.).

But if my friends who are, to themselves, married decide to just openly say so on public forums, not expecting any *specific* benefit or protection, then you can take your "fraud" claims and piss off.

But really, if the law didn't automatically grant all of those protections, this wouldn't be an issue because marriage would have to be only a personal choice.

In the end, all the right-wing nutcases want is to hold onto their elitism while they still have it (while at the same time, constantly accusing the left of elitism - damn I love their irony and hypocrisy.  Really.).  They have these protections built in, rights that have simply openly declared that homosexuals do not have and should never have. (unless they do the "right" thing and marry the opposite sex against their own identity)

And THAT is pure hatred and bigotry, plain and simple.

Comments

[regality3.livejournal.com]

http://regality3.livejournal.com/81993.html#comments

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

and for many of the situations where those rights would be conferred, you are required to show a copy of the marriage certificate in order to be enrolled.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Its the time-constraint ones, the ones that don't directly involve the government, that are at issue.

Visitation rights and medical process authorizations are a big one.

And we didn't have to show any license for any of our mortgages. The only reason the license was needed was to show proof of her name change since it impacted how they found her credit rating.