Gay marriages?... so out of the blue. No , in fact you should of seen this topic coming...or at least I should, for I did a lot of thinking about marriage lately. Why do we do it (us the heterosexual couples I mean)? Isn't love more than enough? Why this need for the legal contract?
for the first reason: You would like to raise children. Together. In most US states you will actually be able to do it. Wait, don't jump out of your shoes yet. In most US states: one parent his/her partner has to go through the same process as a single parent. Again (it is called second-parent adoption). The status of joint adoption (for unmarried couples) in most of these states is at best, unclear. And the process is kind of skewed, confusing,illogical, unnecessarily complicated and potentially hurtful. No, not for the gay parents- they're big guys (or gals), they'll manage it -but for the child.
for the second reason: Your beloved gets sick and after all hard times you went through together all you want to do is to be his/her side. But, wait... your boss would love to be able to allow you take that sick leave, unfortunately he cannot do it. The rules are clear: you can only take it if he/she is your legal spouse. Medical decisions? I mean whom knows your partner better but you? No, not you...it is that third cousin twice removed, your partner's great uncle's great grand son. You seen it once like twenty years ago, he lives on the other side of the US, but he is the closest relative. Because you are not married.
and for the third reason: You spent your life together. Built a house maybe, had some small investments together and your partner dies. All you have left are those cherished memories, the house , the garden in which you had spent quiet hours enjoying the sunset...
And now that your partner is gone, so is his/her income. Since he/she did make more money, you feel lost without that income . Oh, wait there are widow/er benefits.Great! too bad you are not an widow/er...at least not from their point of view.
End note:
this I wrote for one of my friends and his 'nephew'
and after I seen Fire . Love and relationships are not just a question of tradition and social norms but much more. And I thought about Mona and what would she have said about the woman as wife...
2 comments:
sorry i couldn' manage to comment on this post before; i had read it and added to the reader of the site, but the page kept on returning no comment after trying to post something.
reason one is probably the most interesting one. i would say that in any country, that has, or hasn't envisaged yet granting legal status to gay couples, people can actually adopt. of course, the means of adoption are rather strange: fathering a child, mothering a child, adopting as single parent, or adopting as a couple, all apply to a different extent.
but what do you do with countries like Romania, where straight and married parents have a hard time trying to adopt? i don't show my discontent in many ways, i rather focus on the actions that need to be taken in order to make our world easier to live in. but in this respect, i have to say, i hate the Romanian government for depriving tens of thousands of children of their childhood. and anyone who's a parent will have to agree with me.
I do not know much about the situation of adoptions in Romania so I cannot comment on that. But i can imagine it, and I gree that children deserve parents.
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