I wasn't aware that the constitution required that all privileges extended by the government to one person must apply to all others.
Ideally speaking, it shouldn't be
arbitrarily discriminatory about it. IE your race/sex/religion shouldn't factor into it.
Excuse me while I go apply for some minority scholarships, women-owned business grants, and veteran benefits.
I actually oppose 2 out of the 3 of those outright, and am generally opposed to the 3rd.
Actually, yes. And fix the tax code while we are at it to remove the tax incentives (preferred tax code is a whole different discussion, of course.)
The heteros would
scream at that one. They fought hard for that benefit. Called it the 'marriage penalty' when it would cost a dual-income family more in taxes than if they filed as singles.
And 10-30k worth of legal contracts for what exactly? Will? Medical power of attorney/directive? Nuptial agreement spelling out the terms of the union? Short of maybe a prenup/nuptial agreement that only certain people really need now, I can't see any documents needed that a person shouldn't already have now regardless of orientation.
"Yes, and more". One SHOULD always have a will, but a marriage certificate comes with a default one that's different than for a single person. Most marriages don't involve a pre-nup, because in 'most cases' the default terms for ending the contract are good enough for most people. If you're not getting a marriage certificate, that all has to be drawn up manually. You don't just have medical powers of attorney, you also have financial ones to worry about. There's also the cost of the name change(not everybody who gets married takes the option, but it's there and effectively at no additional cost). There's paperwork that needs to be filed for any property that's becoming joint - house, cars, etc... There's paperwork for things like retirement funds. It amounted to not just pointing out how gays were being 'screwed over' - it also pointed out how 'oh *expletive deleted*it' deep reaching a marriage license actually runs. It affects pretty much
everything. Hell, consider a criminal trial - can a gay guy be forced to testify against his paramour, where a wife can not be forced to testify against her husband?
Now, I'll admit that I can't find the source document anymore and I think that they were doing something of a 'worst case' for a couple that could be considered middle class. They might have even included some money for the value of benefits that just can't be duplicated by contracts. Survivor benefits, for example, would have to be replaced by a life insurance policy.
And yes, you could probably get 90% of the effectiveness at 10% of the cost, as things go.
Give it a week and there'll be a section in every big box office store with generic fill in your names documents, internet legal services, and lawyers offering a pencil whipping package for a lot less than 10-30k that will cover 99% of folks.
Well, this article predated most of the 'fill in the boxes' legal documentation preparation packages. Also, as you noted, it was non-standard for the time, and now that they can just get married, it'll stay that way. Part of the problem noted in the article was that even documents professionally prepared by lawyers were being disregarded. Marriage documents were proving to be stronger. Said documents were particularly disregarded by medical providers, who would often default back to the parents even as the 'spouse' presented the professionally prepared medical power of attorney. That's an issue in and of itself, I think, gay or otherwise. I can easily see somebody who's single, but estranged from his parents, selecting his best friend(male, non-sexual friendship) to be his medical backup for choices if something difficult happens.
Toss in a fee to the county in areas where you need to put such documents on file. Take your pick on how generic/customized you want it to be.
And how likely is that fee alone to match the cost of a marriage license?
