i never claimed there were. the legal rights involved deal with the union of two people, whatever their gender may be. inheritance rights, hospital visitation, power of attorney, citizenship status and many other rights are given to legally recognized marriages. these are the things that gay people are asking, not a separate classification.

the only time the separate classification comes in is when state legislatures try to create a "domestic partnership" or "civil union" in an effort to provide the legal framework of a marriage without running afoul of DOMA. by not defining the "civil union" as marriage, it can be ruled legal. but by not defining it as marriage, it is automatically not the same as marriage. gay couples can call themselves married without going through the paperwork, but if one of them should end up spending a lot of time in the hospital, the person they call their husband/wife is not legally able to share their potentially last moments with them. they are not able to make the decision to keep their spouse on life support if need be. they are not able to inherit their spouse's belongings the way a heterosexual couple can -- tax free.

the only thing DOMA and the various state laws against gay marriage do is create a second class of citizens who do not and will not have these rights and the many others that belong to legally recognized marriages. all the gay community is asking for is the same legal protections that straight couples already have. the only place that it becomes contentious is by calling it marriage for everyone, not just for the single man and single woman couple, but for any couple regardless of their gender.



but the existing framework can include man/man or woman/woman. please provide an actual legal basis for why it should not. what purpose is there for the government to deny a man/man or woman/woman relationship the same rights and status as a man/woman relationship. in other words, why does the government have the right to tell people who they are allowed to be in a relationship with? for what social purpose does it serve to deny them the same legal benefits?



how is it not about equal rights? there is one specifically defined group (man/woman marriage) who has more rights than other groups (man/man or woman/woman marriages). you are trying to reduce this to an absurd argument which holds no weight. the only thing that is being asked is to allow marriages between two people who are not specifically man/woman relationships. nothing more, and nothing less.




luckily i did not end up having kids with my now ex-wife, but the divorce was also about as amicable as could be. even so, what the both of us went through both in being married and ending those marriages provided us a legal framework that gay couples currently do not have. this is why it is an equal rights issue, and why it is a legal matter to be settled in this country. we can't call ourselves the land of the free if we have a group which does not share the same rights as the rest of the country. again, it was once illegal to marry outside your race. i would have never married my ex if we still had those laws (and it's questionable now whether i should have to begin with ). but if it is wrong to deny marriage to inter-racial couples, then it should also be wrong to deny marriage to same sex couples.