Dormouse
Doesn't know that mice use holes.
Posts: 2,517
I wish I could be surprised any more. This entire campaign season so far has been a really cruel awakening to just how many backwards bigots there are in positions of power still.
A recent example is in my state, civil union bill SB-2 was filibustered to death by the Republicans at the expense of about 30 other bills (eg water management reforms important for the probably drought this summer) that also didn't get heard as a result. Apparently that's acceptable losses to make sure equal rights are avoided at all costs. The irony is that if it had actually been allowed to get to a second reading and vote, it was almost guaranteed to pass. (Something like 71% of Coloradoans supported it, as did a quorum of our elected officials). There was enough outrage about this that the Governor created a special session to hear it. The Republican speaker routed it to the military spending commission for first review, and as expected they didn't support it enough for it to make it back to the floor again. This is the state I live in, where apparently our local Republican officials are so concerned with maintaining their bigotry that they are quite willing to ignore the will of the majority and sabotage legal process since just campaigning their hatred wasn't being effective enough anymore to swing the votes.
Someone mentioned earlier about how you can just fill out some legal paperwork, file joint taxes, or such instead of needing to rely on marriage for all that. The catch is, all that paperwork requires filing fees, and a lot of it is complicated enough to require paying legal counsel to sort through it. And there are something like 1400 legal protections and provisions included within the one marriage license. Eg, hospital visitation, insurance qualification, medical power of attorney, pension provisions, and so forth. There is no way on earth that any couple would be able to find, complete, file, and keep track of all those disparate forms (of the ones that even can be got) without discovering down the road in an emergency that they had missed one. It's not so much really a matter of "rights" as is often debated as though queers are just demanding more and more rights, it's a matter of basic legal protections and security that is being denied us.
Even the really progressive companies that do provide "domestic partner benefits" in states where civil unions or marriage equality don't exist, there is still a poor comparison. I work at IBM for instance, but to qualify my partner for my insurance we have to live together (we don't) and be monogamous (we're poly). Straight married couples have to prove no such thing to be eligible for their spouse's benefits.
Also, I can kill you with my brain.