Last summer, I worked with a non-profit group that was contracted to run a state-wide summer job program for inner-city youth. I was honored to work with one of the LGBT organizations in getting their kids placed.

Some of the kids (as young as 13) had parental support. Some were on the street. Some had tried to get jobs and faced discrimination. The fact that these were mostly black and Latino LGBT, of course, added another layer to the problem.

Having worked with this kids, I know that marriage equality is a somewhat abstract concept for them when you take into consideration their other challenges on a daily basis. I would love for some of those who stress the importance of marriage equality and NOTHING ELSE to explain and convince even one of the kids that I worked why marriage equality is so much more important than ENDA or a repeal of DADT.

Of course, there are many couples who would get married, if they could do so. I am not saying that it is not important.
I am agreeing with Antonio in the sense that, to read many of these blogs and online magazines, it seems as if marriage is the ONLY issue on the plate.

Heck,gay marriage has a place even in this discussion in terms of its’ economic advantages.

What gay marriage ALONE won’t do, though, is eliminate discrimination in jobs, employment,and other arenas. And, certainly, things like ENDA and the repeal of DADT would affect Antonio’s life in a much more pragmatic way than gay marriage at the present time. Focusing on other things might allow the gay community to form the coalitions that we obviously need to form others (EVERYBODY understands that you need a job!)

Personally, I am in favor of everything in one huge civil rights package.

She was not allowed to be present when her partner had a medical procedure done in her room at a hospital. She was told she had to leave the room or her partner would not get this procedure. The nurse wanted to know who she was since she was always there hold her partner’s hand and when the nurse heard that she was the partner or significant other she did not fall into a “legally recognized” category in our state and she was told to leave. One medical techinician who flies to victims of accidents and injuries in a helicopter as sometimes the easiest and quickest way to transport them to the trauma unit of a hospital says of his same-sex partner and he that if “something” should happen to him due to the inheritently risky nature of his job and he died from it…that his partner might as well take a chainsaw to everything they own and cut it all in half because the partner wouldn’t get it. The taxation would eat it up if he left it to his partner as same-sex couples here in Maryland could not leave property, heart and home to their partner without half of its value going to tax if real property is valued at over a certain dollar amount. It happened in my case when the man I shared life and home with died. If we were a married straight couple in my state, the surviving spouse gets to hang onto the property and is not taxed upon death of his or her spouse and continue to live there until death or sale of property.

So, the marriage word is not a word without consequence or some fancy poo-dah hoity-toity piece of paper as it protects a couple in ways that civil unions can not in the USA even in civil union states like New Jersey where couples in civil unions are having problems with employers or insurance companies taking their civil unions seriously. Everyone knows what a marriage is whereas people with civil unions have to explain themselves over and over about their civil union to everyone empowered to make decisions that affect their lives be it employers, insurance companies, doctors, nurses, medical facilities.

Rodney Moore is absolutely right about this issue. In this society without the marriage label, you and your partner are going be treated as legal strangers to each other regardless of your civil unions. Civil unions get a big fat “F” for failure and for fraud even in civil union states. They may work in Eirinn, or in Island, or in La France, or in Deutschland, OR in the UK, or in Danmark or in New Zealand, BECAUSE THEY ARE BACKED BY THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS OF THOSE LANDS AND ARE LEGAL FOR ALL REGIONS, STATES, PROVINCES AND PRINCIPALITIES OF THOSE COUNTRIES.
The are backed at the federal level in those countries whereas in the USA they have no federal recognition. Same with the marriage equality here. But employers in NJ have responded to and recognized MA marriages with benefits for partners of some of their employees in same-sex relationships have gotten where the same employees have had their NJ civil unions ignored (even though doing so is against the will and intent of the NJ state government.

So like it or not, poo-poo it or not, these people who have been in civil unions are finding out from Vermont to New Jersey that civil unions are getting them nowhere and that in this day and age even now, the “M” word is the only one that protects and that the “M” word is the only one that is the “currency” that employers and insurance companies will respond to. Civil unions just don’t get that kind of respect or recognition.
The people caught up in civil unions are finding out that what word that is applied to their situation DOES INDEED MATTER as they have again found themselves explaining their civil unions over and over again WHEREAS the word “MARRIAGE” IS IMMEDIATELY UNDERSTOOD when it comes to insurers, employers and giving a more solid ground to both same-sex couples and to the kids that some of these couples are raising.

Most of the gay community is not married at the present time (yes because of discrimination) and many, if not most, would remain unmarried if marriage equality fell out of the sky at this very moment.

With layoffs happening at this level, passing ENDA and getting rid of DADT should be the highest priority right.

I get and support all of the marriage equality arguments and were you to put all of this (ENDA, repeal of DADT, repeal of DOMA, and marriage equality)in one big federal civil rights package I would be all for it.

But…most of the gay community is not present at the present time nor, even if marriage equality alone is passed, will every gay and lesbian person in the United States run out to get married. We ALL gotta work, and any and all impediments to finding and maintaining employment in this economy (including job-related discrimination) need to be passed ASAP. Even though I disagreed with Antonio on another issue (I think), I am in complete agreement with him on this one.

I really don’t care if ‘marriage’ is relegated to nothing more than a religious term and civilly all unions are declared to be civil unions, or if the definition of marriage is legally changed to encompass all unions . . . equality must include everyone. If they are not inclusive, they are, by nature, exclusive at the caprice of either the majority or of the government. Both of those possibilities are unacceptable.

I am 30, I have taken both Common AND Civil Law. In every single code in the world in regard to marriage, civil unions would have to be added and each code would have to be modified. Imagine the complexity, I know you can’t.

Marriage entails more than 1,700 rights, which touch EVERY possible realm of human life and existence from taxes, child custody, immigration, college financial aid, etc.

Federal code is based on CODE, which means judges have to follow both the spirit but also the letter of the law. Common law, which is used in most American states is based on judicial precedents. Most marriage code books are also based on code, which is often chiseled in stone as far as law is concerned. If a separate institution like civil unions were invented, as they’ve been in Vermont or New Jersey, the ONLY way to insure that the words “marriage”, “wedded”,”united”, were ALL modified to include “civilly united” or “domestically partnered” or “buttbuddied” etc. This would mean that an entire legal volume of code books would have to be modified to insure that civil unions would be on par with marriage. This is not only an ideologically repulsive undertaking it would cost billions to insure all federal, state, city, county, parish, Uniform Code of Military Justice et al would be modified.

There is a reason that the American Bar Association is more or less on board with marriage equality. Inventing a multiplicity of different institutions would create legal chaos and would NEVER insure equality.

Civil Unions are a pipe dream, marriage is NOT just a word, to even “think” that it is, shows one’s lack of basic intelligence. Marriage equality is a more difficult path, but accepting “civil unions” will not only be a barrier to REAL equality, it would create legal confusion and waste tax payer dollars on rewriting the marriage code books.

As far as being 22 and wanting a job or joining the military, that is all find a dandy. However, why would you want to work and pay taxes and social security, but not have equal rights? Why would you want to fight for a country, where, if and when you die in Iraq, Afghanistan, XYZ country, he couldn’t be informed of your death or get your DD214s and your GI Bill benefits because you weren’t “MARRIED”?

How narrow minded and ignorant. Marriage equality is being one in several countries around the world. Per every country that has PACs, Civil Partnership, etc, there is another country which chooses the simple solution of marriage equality, because they’re smart enough to see how complicated it would be to create a redundant separate and/but (un)equal institution. Legal idealism has its place, but if you think civil unions are pragmatic and less complicated then you should shoot yourself now, cos you don’t have a brain.