[PLOlover]

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
Adults should generally be allowed to contract freely with others, including giving legal status for another to manage their affairs, visit them when they're sick, share bank accounts, decide inheritance without legal interference, and so on.



Sounds a lot like the legal definition of marriage. Whatever you call it, those rights currently don't exist across the board.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is simply not true. the above are all freely available to anyone. what is at issue is government/corporate benefits such as social security benefits, employer paid health insurance, etc.

to elaborate, if a husband dies his wife keeps getting his s.s., his gay lover wouldn't. a spouse would be covered by an employee family plan, a gay lover wouldn't, *although* some companies have voluntarily included homosexual couples in their family benefit plans.

bottom line, in my opinion the gays feel they are being discriminated against in these financial "schemes", but imo these "schemes" are pretty crazy anyway. it's like criticizing one part of the income tax code for being frivolous or loopholey, when the whole thing is that way.