PANELIST: "MARRIAGE EQUALITY" PACE TIED TO ELECTION RESULTS: From the St. Petersburg Times

In Karen Doering's family, marriage is so important that her parents have seven unions between them.

"Yet somehow, our one marriage to each other is defiling unions," said Doering, a Tampa civil rights attorney who said she has been married for nearly 10 years to another woman.

With several states issuing marriage licenses to gay couples this year and more than a dozen states considering its constitutionality, same-sex marriage has become an issue in the presidential race. On Saturday, that debate came to the 15th annual Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in the form of a panel titled 1600 Reasons Why Marriage Matters.

"What they're telling us when we can't have marriage equality is that we don't deserve society's safety net, and they don't give a d--- that we pay the same taxes as everybody else," said Doering, who outlined some of the 1,100 federal (such as family medical leave, unemployment compensation and immigration) and 500 state (parental and tax rights) benefits available to heterosexual married couples, but not homosexuals. ...

Sen. John Kerry agrees that marriage is between a man and a woman, but does not support a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriages. He suggested during last week's third presidential debate that homosexuality is not a choice.

The different stances are why Doering described this presidential race as "the single most important election of our lives. This election is going to make the difference between whether we win marriage equality in five years or 25 years."

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posted by Eve at 3:00 PM VOTE

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