Those rights are expanding as legally married gay couples relocate to states that don't allow same-sex marriage, forcing courts, legislatures and employers to deal with the resulting issues of custody, divorce, inheritance and end-of-life decisions.Which was the game plan all along. A lot of the article is about this tactic.
[The rest is below the fold if you care to read it.]
In the workplace, proponents of extending spousal rights, like healthcare benefits and life insurance, to same-sex couples have succeeded by challenging employment practices that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.What if your sexual orientation is towards more than one person at the same time? What is the justification to limiting an employee to one partner at a time?
Time is also a necessary element to achieving marriage [neutering] throughout the country, said [Williams Institute’s executive director Brad] Sears.First of all, there is a difference between "recognizing" the rights of same-sex couples and neutering state marriage licensing. Secondly, the negative effects of marriage neutering and state encouragement (as no different than marriage) fatherless or motherless households that model homosexual behavior is generational, so many of the negative consequences aren't going to show up for many years, and these advocates will try to pin the blame on anything else. The more immediate ones, like a jump in illegitimacy, they either say are not a problem or they attribute to something else, like global warming. The world didn't end the day after no fault divorce was made law, but that change has definitely worsened things. Previously: The Careful March Towards Marriage Neutering"The more the rights of same-sex couples are recognized, the less credible are arguments about potential bad or harmful things that might happen if they are recognized," he said.
New Hampshire joined the equality circle with no such legal action; they did it because it was the right thing to do.
ReplyDeleteNo, they did it because the pro-SSM side lobbied harder. Not surprising in New England, sad for New Englanders.
ReplyDeleteBest predictor of the likelihood of SSM passage in a state, or the degree of support it has in an area: John B. Anderson's 1980 percentage of the presidential vote. Expect movement to legalize it in states that gave him more than 8 percent of the vote. Don't expect much movement anytime soon in states that gave him less than 5 percent of the vote.