I DO... WANT BENEFITS TO: Alison Lebron

in the Boston Globe:
...A common, and persuasive, argument for gay marriage goes something like this: We need marriage because if a gay person loses a job, he may not be able to get on a partner’s health plan. Or, a lesbian whose partner dies cannot collect survivor’s benefits from Social Security.

Those are formidable disparities, and ones that also affect the roughly 40 percent of Americans over 25 who are unmarried. If a single person dies without a dependant child or parent, Social Security benefits go back into the pot, not to a loved one. If I lost my job, I’d be thrown into the COBRA labyrinth while a married co-worker could simply get on his or her spouse’s plan.

Last year, I wrote an essay in this magazine on the advantage married people have of receiving lower auto insurance premiums than single people, driving records aside. But health care and life benefits can add up to quite a bit more money over time. ...

Our country’s habit of passing out financial perks based on marital status is hardly a time-honored tradition. According to marriage historian Stephanie Coontz, it wasn’t until the early 20th century that US governments and corporations began using marital status as a way to decide who got which benefits. “The development of the welfare state here was more attached to marriage than to individual rights,” she says. ...

Some argue that the road to true fairness isn’t expanding marriage rights -- it’s getting the state out of the marriage business altogether, a possibility that arose when the Supreme Court of California heard arguments on Proposition 8. In this scenario, religious groups and families would solemnize marriages (as they do now) and states would instead issue “civil union” licenses, giving the same legal rights and responsibilities to all who register. A heterosexual couple would get one. So would a gay couple. So, potentially, would unmarried siblings who make a home together. Coontz says Canada has considered proposals allowing a pair of friends to obtain rights (and obligations) similar to marriage.

This sort of proposal would, unfortunately, perpetuate the idea that pairing up is the only acceptable way to live. At the same time, it’s a step toward acknowledging that for millions of Americans, close friends or siblings are the most significant “other” in their lives -- and they should not face financial penalty because of it.
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Labels: beyond marriage

posted by Eve at 9:36 PM VOTE

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