Since the lawsuit to overturn prop 8 will kick off on Monday, I wanted to post a couple of links of interest.
The Conservative Case for Gay Marraige
This is a Newsweek article written by Ted Olson, one of the lawyers hired to overturn Prop 8 in federal court. It lays out a high level view of the It's a good read.
A longer read comes from the New Yorker. This one also profiles Olson, but goes into more back story about the case, more of the concerns and arguments about the timing of the case. I'd recommend both articles.
A Risky Proposal
-Andy
Showing posts with label gay marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gay marriage. Show all posts
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Monday, October 05, 2009
$467,562 More
$467,562 worst case. $41,196 best case. That's how much more the average gay couple can expect to pay over the course of their lives than the average straight couple.
New York Times - The High Price of Being a Gay Couple
I can tell you that my family isn't the average. We've already paid far more than the best case, just in the 6 years that we've been together in this country.
But it doesn't stop at the money cost.
I haven't ready the court decision, I'm only taking the plaintiff's word for it, but a woman who was suing a hospital in Florida for not allowing her to visit her dying legal domestic partner in the hospital just had her case thrown out. Her partner died, while she stood in the next room being told that since the women weren't related, she wouldn't be allowed in. Since her partner collapsed outside their hotel room, and their power of attorney paperwork was in the hotel room, it wasn't available for her at the hospital.
Read the Langbehn-Pond family blog
And let's not forget what happens when a spouse dies. The woman in the video below wasn't allowed to make funeral arrangements for her spouse after she was killed in a flood.
And then there's my case. I make a good salary. I pay over $30k a year in taxes. My boyfriend, based on his work experience and education, would be in the $45-50k/year salary range, and in line to pay his own fair share of taxes. If we were a straight couple, he'd already be working. Since we're not, we're still wondering how much longer we can stay. IF he can find a job by April 1, we have the ability for him to stay here until April 1, 2011. If he can't, we're going to have to leave in 2010.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you should love the gays. I'm not even going to tell you that you should be ok with the gays. I am going to ask that when given the opportunity, you choose to either favor bills that would give gays equal protection under the law or at least stop and think about the many ways that you are affecting the lives of law abiding fellow Americans every time you decide to give your support to measures that seek to keep gay people in second class citizen status.
-Andy
Nearly all the extra costs that gay couples face would be erased if the federal government legalized same-sex marriage. One exception is the cost of having biological children, but we felt it was appropriate to include this given our goal of outlining every cost gay couples incur that heterosexual couples may not.
New York Times - The High Price of Being a Gay Couple
I can tell you that my family isn't the average. We've already paid far more than the best case, just in the 6 years that we've been together in this country.
But it doesn't stop at the money cost.
I haven't ready the court decision, I'm only taking the plaintiff's word for it, but a woman who was suing a hospital in Florida for not allowing her to visit her dying legal domestic partner in the hospital just had her case thrown out. Her partner died, while she stood in the next room being told that since the women weren't related, she wouldn't be allowed in. Since her partner collapsed outside their hotel room, and their power of attorney paperwork was in the hotel room, it wasn't available for her at the hospital.
Read the Langbehn-Pond family blog
And let's not forget what happens when a spouse dies. The woman in the video below wasn't allowed to make funeral arrangements for her spouse after she was killed in a flood.
And then there's my case. I make a good salary. I pay over $30k a year in taxes. My boyfriend, based on his work experience and education, would be in the $45-50k/year salary range, and in line to pay his own fair share of taxes. If we were a straight couple, he'd already be working. Since we're not, we're still wondering how much longer we can stay. IF he can find a job by April 1, we have the ability for him to stay here until April 1, 2011. If he can't, we're going to have to leave in 2010.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you should love the gays. I'm not even going to tell you that you should be ok with the gays. I am going to ask that when given the opportunity, you choose to either favor bills that would give gays equal protection under the law or at least stop and think about the many ways that you are affecting the lives of law abiding fellow Americans every time you decide to give your support to measures that seek to keep gay people in second class citizen status.
-Andy
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