Gay Men's Challenges Support Group

as a matter of fairness, we should be entitled to the same legal benefits. on a social level, we should have the same opportunity to make the same choices, or mistakes, whatever they turn out to be.
either way, the option should be available.

We must have equal citizenship.

We didn't care about religious approval or we would have had a commitment ceremony eons ago - we wanted all the legal protections available to everyone else. For me it's about wanting to define, defend and provide for my family **the same as everyone else** - being denied the option of marriage means that we have to live with levels of risk that many (maybe most) of our hetero peers would find unacceptable.

A hetero acquaintance of mine has disparaged marriage for years. He lives with rather than marries his girlfriend. "Just a piece of paper," he grumbles. Universal health care, in his mind, would eliminate *my* need for marriage.

Eh, not really. The legal benefits of marriage go way beyond eligibility for family health plans... like protecting a surviving spouse from poverty and homelessness in the event of a serious and/or terminal illness, for instance.

Or for that matter, ensuring that one's family is protected regardless of which state lines are crossed. This business of some states refusing to recognize gay marriages legal in other states means that there are places in this country that are DANGEROUS for us to be... to say nothing of federal penalties we are assessed because the IRS doesn't recognize unions that Massachusetts does. It costs us money that we aren't a HETERO couple.

Or what about the de-humanizing message that corporations are allowed to deliver? Before we were allowed to marry we both asked our employers if we could put the other on our health insurance as "domestic partner."

In my case, the answer was the town that employs me was liberal enough to WANT to say yes, but at that time were not permitted by state law to "redefine marriage" to allow it. In my partner's case, the national retail chain for whom he worked responded that there was no state law that *required* them to provide benefits for domestic partners, so they did not. But here's the kicker...

...they couldn't give us health insurance for the human partner, but because they understood how important pets are they COULD offer us a plan FOR OUR CAT.

I'd laugh at the absurdity of this if it didn't just piss me off to my BOOTS every time I think of it that the idiot who offered us this "substitute" did NOT understand how DEGRADING it is to be told that I am less valuable than a pet.

I agree with Steve and Ulla.

Equal legal rights, personally I don't care what it is called as long as it is equal to straight marriage legally speaking...................

"EQUAL RIGHTS"

Rob..............what a great avatar pic!

Equal rights!!

Equal rights, benefits and marriage * the works

There is no reason why rights should not be equalized here.

I think we should have equal rights to straight couples and all the benefits taht come from that.

My worry is that our community is not ready for the consequencese of legal marriage. For decades we partner up, fall "in love", move in together after 2 months of dating (or less), and then think little of it when they move out after a year.

There are no legal or financial consequences to these short term relationsips usually. One person leaves, you no longer have someone to split the rent with but thats it.

Enter gay marriage. Now when the two guys fall "in love" and move in after 2 months they also get married. Now, one guy decides to leave because they cant make it work and you have legal bills, alimony, etc. Not to mention a huge strain on the courts system and the social backlash of reporters gleefully reporting that 80% of gay marriage ends in divorce after 2 years (statistics made up but probably close)

Gay men traditionally have multiple long term serious "marriage like" relationships over a life time. My theory is that we never got to date in highschool so we make a lot of those juvenile dating mistakes in our 20s and even our 30s. But mom and dad and limited finances arent there to keep us from doing dumb stuff like rushing into marriage after a month or two. And most of us dont have the conflict resolution skills to maintain a long term "marriage."

I'mnot saying we shoudn't have these rights but I think our community needs to grow more before we are able tohandle those rights responsibly.

I want equal rights, same beneifts we shouldnt be punished for being born the way we were born