remember all those marriage protection amendments?

[acroyear]

You know, the ones where the proponents insisted verbally that the amendment didn't mean that same sex couples that get private contractual agreements for benefits would have their rights to such contracts and benefits slashed?

And remember how we read them as saying EXACTLY that - that the text was precisely the type that would void such contracts and give gay couples absolutely no rights at all.

And they insisted NO, we wouldn't want to do something like that, we just want to protect marriage.

Well, the courts have finally had their say, and we were right.

Gay couples are fucked.

As are their children.

No health care benefits even if the company wants to give them, no visitation rights in a hospital, no beneficiary agreements for stocks and insurance, no joint mortgages, nothing.  not even a car loan co-signing.

In the state of Michigan, if these contracts involve a gay couple they are as of now null and void.

The religious right assholes just got their wish - being gay means being a second class citizen in that state forever.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Michigan Partnership Benefits Killed by Court:

In a long-awaited and very disappointing ruling, the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that any partnership benefits granted to gay couples, even those as part of negotiated union agreements, are unconstitutional under the anti-gay marriage amendment, Proposal 2, passed in 2004. After the passage of that amendment, the attorney general ruled that a state contract that included such benefits was illegal and that ruling was challenged on behalf of several cities and public universities in the state.

The district court ruled that Proposal 2 did not affect such benefits, but that was overturned by the appeals court and the supreme court upheld the appeals court ruling. The tragic irony of this is that despite the "save the children" rhetoric from the anti-gay crowd, the first people affected by this ruling will be the children of gay couples who may lose health care and other protections as a result.

What makes me pissed is this exact same text passed in Virginia and no matter how hard I tried to explain that this would happen, I still couldn't get my mother passed the "but it's protecting marriage" bullshit.

She voted for it here.

And REALLY pissed me off.

And this is why.

You give a community an anonymous way to show themselves as utter bigots and they will do exactly that.  The churches of the religious right today are utterly founded on principles bigotry and hatred.

And yes, I WILL hate them back.

Comments

[3fingeredsalute.livejournal.com]

I hear what you are saying, and I cringe at the ridiculousness of the reasons behind their attempting to dismantle legal documents, however -- I will one more time say "carefully crafted legal documents". If there is no reference to "my husband/wife/spouse" and simply naming the individual by their name, or as their "friend" with the name, then I firmly believe the document(s) can not be contested by the grounds of that specific legislation. There simply is no precedent to render these nearly universally accepted documents. Not even with the state legislators decrying their omnipotent infallibility.

Then again, let McCain become President in '08, and we will have a Federal Supreme Court which won't overturn Virginia/Michigan's stupefying attempt to legislate shamelessly discriminatory intollerance.

Let me put it this way...

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

On paragraph 1, I hope you're right, and when someone finally has the need and the will to challenge it, I'll contribute to the legal fund.

On paragraph 2? *shudder*

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Just because you don't put your intentions in writing as part of the document, doesn't mean they don't exist. If you are part of a same sex couple, and the document provides a benefit of marriage, the court can find, reasonably that it meets the terms laid out in the law. The law isn't reasonable, but that's not the point, the document meets the definition in the law. The court can't find the constitution unconstitutional.

And, I said the same things when the ammendment was proposed. It says "no contract", and I want to know, who gets the car, who gets the payments already made? The contract can be ruled null and void, and all that's left is letting the court split up the stuff the way it says the stuff should be.

[3fingeredsalute.livejournal.com]

If the proper legal documents are in place, the court has no say in who gets what. It is predetermined by your document of wishes.

The legally defined definition of "spouse" applies to a man and a woman in these cases. Spouses are given certain rights. Those SAME rights can be duplicated and never revoked with proper legal documents which should have been redundant, but never really are.

The best way to put this is, EVERYONE should have legal documents in place. Most of us depend on the definition of what will happen if we do nothing. We can NOT do nothing in a society who swings like a pendulum (or a corpse on a hangman's noose) to the will of public opinion.

Your "will", as you put it, MUST be expressed in a well-crafted legal document if you are a same-sex couple, as it stands now. Perhaps you are agreeing with me, but it sounded like you might not be. "No contract" means by virtue of marriage. It does not, whatsoever, imply all rights to that person do not exist outside of that definition.