Re: [Marxism] Sherry Wolf on gay marriage and divorce--from the Democrats

[Adam Richmond <adambrichmond@xxxxxxxxx>]

 Marriage privileges one to many federal rights.  Here in California, we have 
fairly advanced civil union legislation.  Today's fight is a matter of smashing 
that is something like a caste privilege.  It's about human dignity denied.  
Its about being told for the millionth time that your life is second rate and 
your relationships are too. Today we witnessed the Supreme Court enshrine 
institutional discrimination against same sex people who wish to marry.

I went to the demonstration at 5PM in front of San Francisco City Hall. There 
were about 3-4000 people, mostly younger.  The general theme of the rally was 
"down but not out."  Earlier in the day, at 10 am, there was a civil 
disobidience action with dozens of arrests.

As one of the 18,000 gay married Californians I can tell you some of the rights 
either  I or my associates been denied: 

1.  My partner pays federal income tax on the healthcare benefits he gets at 
his job for my healthcare coverage.  Straight married couples don't have this 
significant benefit taxed.  It's called imputed income.  It isn't taxed by the 
State of California any longer. 

2.  Federal laws doesn't recognize gay relationships that involve a 
noncitizen.  My former neighbor, as US citizen, couldn't have his British 
partner move to San Francisco because of Federal immigration laws.  A straight 
married couple doesn't have this same problem.  They decided to move to Toronto 
in order to live together.

3. Immediately after the 1989 California earthquake, a lesbian friend traveling 
in Japan, was told that she had no right to information about her partner 
living in Santa Cruz from the US Embassy, as she was not a a relative.  This 
kind of story is repeated over and over again.

And finally, I'd like to comment on John's statement: "Personally, I support 
the right to gay marriage even though for the life of me I can't see why anyone 
would want to exercise that right."  But many do, all the time, in fact I 
suspect that most of the contributors to this list are married.






 







      
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