Expansion of marriage rights, some more thoughts on marriage and child-rearing

[suecochran]

I just took a look at my last post (about gay and poly marriage rights) again, and had some more things to say about that.

Comments

[pocketnaomi]

It's partly about gay divorce, and gay custody rights... it's also about gay insurance, and gay funeral arrangements, and gay hospital visitation, and gay medical power of attorney, and gay inheritance, and gay tax returns, and all kinds of other things that we've wrapped up under the heading of marriage and stuck together whether they make a whole lot of sense or not. There are several states right now which don't allow gay marriage which do allow both members of a couple who adopt together or birth a child by joint decision and surrogate biology to put their names on their child's birth certificate as parents, regardless of what sex either of them might be. That alone will allow continued parenting rights in the event of a breakup, whether the parents ever were married or not

[pocketnaomi]

I appreciate your comments, as always. I'm just curious about your final sentence - it read to me as if you thought that I was, or my friend was, attributing the desire for and fight to legalize gay marriage to just that one aspect: rights that involve divorce and custodial concerns. In addressing these issues, in the case that gay (or people in any other "non-heterosexual monogamous" marriage situation) parents are separating/divorcing and need to have arbitration or mediation to govern decisions on how to deal with the child(ren) they have, physical custody, visitation, and other parental involvement issues of child-rearing after the split-up, I did not intend to imply that this was the sole reason for any people to be fighting for equality in marriage rights

[suecochran]

Sorry, I forgot to log in before I posted the above reply. It's from me, duh .

[pocketnaomi]

Okay, I see now. Thanks for clarifying, Yes, I thought your friend's comment meant that the sole reason, or the only one important enough to really matter, for seeking marriage rights was in order to get permanent rights to parent the children of such a partnership in the deal.

I can certainly agree with you about the importance of parenting rights; I've spent the last year and a half in a bitter custody war myself, and I suspect the conflict won't be 100% over, even when the divorce is finalized, for years. And I know that there would be some serious issues involved if cflute and I were to break up (which, thank heaven, we have no intention of doing); she's become a beloved and active parent to the kids and would have only the recourse I chose to let her have in terms of access to their lives thereafter. I'm not so great a fool that, even in the case of a bitter separation, I would want to take someone out of my kids' lives who was good for them and to them... but she'd have to count on my continued willingness, and even though in my case

Done yesterday (20101202 Th)

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User mdlbear referenced to your post from Done yesterday (20101202 Th) saying: [...] r. @ Sue Stuff - Expansion of marriage rights, some more thoughts on marriage and child-rearing [...]