Money is certainly one issue, but children, medical, immigration, and many other extremely personal issues are also highly impacted by the inability to marry.

My ex husband is from outside the US, and when we first met we had to jump through tons of hoops for him to finally be able to stay here, including long months of separations, and his being stuck in a job he hated for years, unable to change employers or jobs without starting the process all over again (and probably not even being allowed to - there’s a fairly limited set of occupations that even allow you to get a work visa, and lots of restrictions about who can apply and for how long, not to mention a huge waiting list). He’s paid probably around twenty thousand dollars in legal and INS fees for the whole process.

If we were allowed to marry, he would have simply filed some paperwork at the INS and within a few months, worked wherever he wanted, in whichever occupation he desired. A few years later we would have had to go in for an interview, and he’d get his green card. Total cost would probably have been under a thousand.

Stress related to the whole process was also a big factor in our breakup, it is entirely likely we would still be together if we could have done the marriage INS route. As it was, we were together (and monogamous) for over 7 years, which is better than many straight couples, and have remained best friends ever since.

I respect the feelings of someone like Bob Aman (at the top of this chain) who are uncomfortable with sharing the term “marriage” with the gay community. It brings them just a little too close, doesn’t it? It’s better if they stay in the West Villiage, right? The civil rights movement was also uncomfortable, Galileo’s fight with the pope couldn’t have felt good, either. It is America’s destiny to provide equal rights and freedom to live and love for all people. Progress is inevitable. It may not be comfortable right now, but history has taught us that the results are always FABULOUS!

I not only believe we should make life as easy as possible for gays, we should encourage gayness. Oh, you say, that can’t be done — I say bullshit, with the proper economic incentive — I’ll do ANYTHING. I have talked to Mrs. DosPeros about this and she doesn’t seem to have a problem with it — so forget about marriage and all that, let the GAY PARTY BEGIN!!! (I’ll buy some stock in a petroleum jelly manufacturer and short my Fanz Enterprise (NASCAR) holdings.)

http://www.pflag.org/Rights__Priviledges_and_Benefits_of_Marriage.175.0.html

and another:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bene.htm

and another:
http://www.marriageequality.org/facts.php?page=1049_federal

Of course none of these lists is comprehensive, since state rights vary from state to state (and I think most of the above was federal rights), and I’m sure there are a number of special cases that are probably not included here.

In addition, as I said before, many federal and state judicial precedents and rulings apply to married couples but not automatically to civil unions and not at all to the 99% of gay couples unfortunately enough to not even be allowed civil unions.

It’s quite simple: if you don’t think homosexuals should be allowed to get married and have the same rights as heterosexuals, you think they are LESS than, and therefore don’t equate them to humans, which is fucked.

America is supposed to be “the land of the free”, except when it comes to gay marriage and other things like immigration.. do you have to be reminded that at one point our ancestors were immigrants? Who are we to put up borders to land that was here before us.

Smarten up people.

Marriage, on the other hand, includes by default not only *ALL* of the rights of straight marriage (not just the ones *they* think we should be allowed to have), but also has a huge body of law and precedent backing up how and when the various provisions apply, especially when considering such things as adoption, child custody and support, inheritance, etc., in short, the very areas that make marriage so important for straight people.

Calling it marriage on a state level also makes it more likely that a successful challenge of the federal DOMA might occur, which (if Bush hadn’t stacked the federal courts with conservatives) would never withstand a constitutionality check. Until that occurs, tax law, immigration, inheritance, and a host of other federal marriage benefits and requirements will never be permitted for gay people. In particular, it makes it far easier for one state to refuse to enforce child custody or support court decisions made in states with gay civil unions or marriage, so all one has to do to evade one’s responsibility is move to a gay unfriendly state.

Though I think Governor Spitzer is doing a great thing by introducing this legislature, I am still somewhat gun-shy about the whole gay marriage issue, mostly because of how the neocons managed to convert what was then really a non-issue into an election winning issue in many states in 2000 through 2004. Unfortunately bigotry and homophobia are still quite common, and even people who say or believe they are not either will still vote against gay marriage because no one will ever find out they voted that way. Sure, marriage is a wonderful thing between a man and a woman, but people need to realize it can be just as beautiful between any two people who truly love each other and want to spend their lives together.