interesting facts - couples and marriage questions/facts?

Question

http://www.egyptology.com/niankhkhnum_khnumhotep/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khnumhotep_and_Niankhkhnum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions

although i do not quite believe in marriage, i do see how it can be benificial to the majority of coupled same sex people. seriously all we really need or request is the ability to have out partners as beneficiaries/guardians of our children/heirs to what we have/and the ability to see us in the freakin hospital in emergent cases. Seriously is calling it marriage all that great? We just need some better rights. I don't want to get married, but i do like the idea that my partner is my partner in life and not some guy i hooked up with and can't do anything when i really need them.

i don't care who answers this just take into consideration.
if you were to go to the hospital and be in intensive care and the only person you wanted with you was denied access because he was not family. what about when you die?

Answer 1

do you know how to spell E Q U A L I T Y....I'm gay and my partner of 19 years and I don't want to get married either...but I believe that we should have the same rights and choices as other people.period.

Answer 2

The main push to have it called "marriage" isn't actually ABOUT having it called "marriage" as such. It's about equality. Right now, all the legislation on the books refers to that thing with the legal recognitions that straights get as "marriage". If they wanted to push that word strictly into the religious realm, and start calling the legal part "Whojibub", I'm cool with that. Then you can get a straight whojibub or a gay whojibub and it really doesn't friggin' matter. What does matter is that it's the SAME. And if it's not, even if it were set up initially to be exactly equal, the next time legislation is changed on either of them (our civil unions to their marriages), the other doesn't have to. That quickly becomes "seperate but equal" which we know from history doesn't work.

Answer 3

Those links are fascinating. Yes, it is very sad that currently, gay couples don't have the right to make medical decisions for their partners or have joint custody over their children or estate. This needs to change.

Also, did you know that if a heterosexual couple lives together for 7 years and is not married, they are automatically considered a "common law marriage"? This gives them the rights of marriage and they never even got married in the first place. At the very very least, this needs to apply to gay couples.