Obama Has Little Wiggle Room on Domestic Benefits for Gay Partners

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Gay Marriage is WAY MORE COMPLEX than just the healthcare part of it. How dare you even assume that the healthcare is all it is about! Because guess what? We don't recieve spousal benefits such as veterans who are injured overseas. Guess what? WE SUFFER WHEN OUR SPOUSE SUFFERS! Not only that, but heterosexual married couples get these "gimme's" or free little bonuses with the government. Yes, I understand gays can not produce children the same way as straight people, but had the bible thumpers not taken a step out to keep gay people from adopting in some states, then half of the kids who are in foster care right now could have HOMES! As a matter of fact, there is no scientific proof that gay parents produce gay children and if you think that then you need to look at me. My parents were married before I was ever concieved, they ARE STILL MARRIED as I am in my senior year in college, I have been out since I was 14 years old and trust me my parents did not like it, but THEY ARE STRAIGHT. So maybe straight people should not be able to adopt children either... because they make gay children.Do you think it is all about the environment you grow up in?. My best friend is straight and guess what... her mother is gay.

Ashley of AR 1:29PM September 26, 2009

Really, Marriage Equality is so much more than Health Care benefits. To be so flipant with your statement at the end is just scary. So many people already do not understand ALL of the small and large benefits accorded to them through the word marriage that they do not understand the full impact of just how inequal and economically unjust it is to deny gay committed couples equal rights in this area of law. Every single heterosexual couple in this country pays taxes, votes, and gets their economic married benefits via a Civil License they obtain at their County Clerk's office. Denying gay committed couples the same license is and the same economic benefits is unjust. Those civil licenses by the way are granted to heterosexuals whether they are capable of procreating or not so don't bother carrying on about the family and children blahblahblah...that's all smoke for being willing to discriminate against a minority group you choose not to tolerate. Some arguments and smoke that has been used for centuries every time the majority wishes to discriminate. A government issued Civil License is a Civil Right.

NJ of CA 1:57AM March 15, 2009

Really, Marriage Equality is so much more than Health Care benefits. To be so flipant with your statement at the end is just scary. So many people already do not understand ALL of the small and large benefits accorded to them through the word marriage that they do not understand the full impact of just how inequal and economically unjust it is to deny gay committed couples equal rights in this area of law. Every single heterosexual couple in this country pays taxes, votes, and gets their economic married benefits via a Civil License they obtain at their County Clerk's office. Denying gay committed couples the same license is and the same economic benefits is unjust. Those civil licenses by the way are granted to heterosexuals whether they are capable of procreating or not so don't bother carrying on about the family and children blahblahblah...that's all smoke for being willing to discriminate against a minority group you choose not to tolerate. Some arguments and smoke that has been used for centuries every time the majority wishes to discriminate. A government issued Civil License is a Civil Right.

NJ of CA 1:56AM March 15, 2009

Any dunce can define marriage as between two people (and not more than two people).
You do not have to endorse polygamy to give gay people equal marriage rights. And to the nutty guy further down who brought up beastiality, well----a crock of rocks.

Muser of NM 4:48PM March 14, 2009

You are opening a can of worms that should have stayed on the shelf. If you give equal rights to people that choose to practice homosexuality,then you'll have to extend the same rights to those who choose to practice polygomy.
Now you don't have a high horse to stand on.You won't have any choice but to recognize a person who wants to have more than one spouse. Think or the tax deductions they will be eligable for. They may want 10,20 or more "life" partners".

John of VA 1:02PM March 14, 2009

And you write very clearly that you believe gay people should have the rights discussed here, why are you working to make sure that I never have the same rights you do?
This article makes it less likely, in its own small way, that gays will ever see equal treatment. You are discouraging people who you know should be our allies from fighting for us.
And here's something you need to get now:
Gay people are being hit harder than straight people by the downturn in the economy. We are losing health insurance and unable to get on partners' policies. Soft bigotry means that gays are more likely to be laid off, to lose their homes, to have fewer places to go when things go wrong. You cannot separate the economy from our equality. We are Americans. No one in this country should be able to sleep well until we all have the same legal rights.
And no one who understands the injustice against us can be excused for saying that the right course is to allow it to stand.
Someday you will be very embarrassed by this column, I hope.

Landon Bryce of CA 10:09AM March 14, 2009

There are plenty of opinions given yet when their arguments are carried out to the fullest extent beastiality and any polymoral equivalent in the spectrum is justified to redeem the fact that some love hedonism. Mutual pleasure for pleasures sake if you will. It cant be an institution for procreation because in principle that is not going to happen by itself. Extinction in one generation is the result of merging outside procreation's natural guidlines. No matter the surgeon's skill, you are not going to have the working equipment for both but only the one you were born with. No matter what you think you are or were intended to be.
Liberty and freedom is not a group thing but rather that of the individual human being. Behavior is not a protected right and that will never change.

Jeff of WI 8:54AM March 14, 2009

Compare and contrast; one of my high school english teachers drilled that into my head. Compare and contrast: Slave rights and gay rights; the contrasts are easy, the comparisons are profound. Slaves could not get legally married either. They could not create and sign contracts, and what is marriage mostly (legally speaking) but a huge contract with thousands of rights and responsibilities. Navanethem Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights spoke there last year saying, "That just like apartheid laws that criminalized sexual relations between different races, laws against homosexuality are increasingly becoming recognized as anachronistic and inconsistent both with international law and with traditional values of dignity, inclusion, and respect for all." Apartheid: A system of laws applied to one category of citizens in order to isolate them and keep them from having privileges and opportunities given to all others. Stop gay apartheid.

Thom Miller of MN 10:52PM March 13, 2009

is the correct approach. There is no good reason on earth why we have a goofy social structure that conditions access to health care on who is married to whom. Yes, we let that grow up in our society, and yes, it was always wrong.

Muser of NM 12:16PM March 13, 2009