So both names on the title only insures you an interest in the property, and the legal heirs of your partner can challenge you and maybe, depending on state law, you’ll only end up with the money you spent on the home being refunded to you.

However, as I said, I know that too many people have bizarre cultural and emotional ties to the idea, so I don’t even go there as a practical matter. Next best thing is to support everyone who is adult, sane and mentally competent having the right to marry whomever and however many whomevers they want, as long as all parties involved are fully consenting. So that’s what I do as a practical matter. That includes same-sex marriage.

Where did I say it’s a cure-all? It removes one level of problems, but the magical Marriage Fairy does not come down and fix everything if your relatives are determined to make trouble. It just makes it much more likely that you’ll win your case, because the law gives primacy to the spouse over other relatives.

I have actually chosen to marry, twice! And I can tell you that the system has a massive amount of in-built defects. I don’t oppose anybody’s choice or desire to build a family with someone else; I just fail to see why “marriage” should be a legal concept at all, for anyone.

Again, the fact that marriage didn’t work out for you means that no one else should be allowed to do it? Seriously, that’s the argument of a 5-year-old. “I don’t want it, so other people who want it suck and are stupid. Nyah.”

I do of course recognize however that marriage is about as likely to go away as a legal instution as pigs are to fly, so since I can’t have that, I totally support same-sex marriage and always have ever since I can remember.

How are you totally supporting same-sex marriage if you think marriage should be banned for everyone?

It was a few years ago, and it’s easy to see he still has a hole where this relationship has not healed over (and probably never will). We went to the funeral, just for support, and it was really rough. Place was packed. We live in a very red part of SoCal, so there wasn’t a lot of support expected. They had to soft-pedal the gay thing pretty strongly, which I thought was kind of rotten.

Nasty stuff…

As I was saying to Mnemosyne, since I know there is no chance in hell of marriage as an entire legal concept going away, ever, I choose not to pursue that in my bursts of political activism and confine my letter-writing blogular and personal support to absolutely throwing it open to same-sex couples, without mercy towards that “civil union” substitute crapola. I am so sorry about your friend, also.

I have actually chosen to marry, twice! And I can tell you that the system has a massive amount of in-built defects. I don’t oppose anybody’s choice or desire to build a family with someone else; I just fail to see why “marriage” should be a legal concept at all, for anyone. As far as a ceremonial, religious or emotional bonding issue, I am all for that. I do of course recognize however that marriage is about as likely to go away as a legal instution as pigs are to fly, so since I can’t have that, I totally support same-sex marriage and always have ever since I can remember.

I wasn’t thinking that you had a SINISTER purpose; rather I was thinking you had a mindlessly sentimental one.

Yes, there’s nothing more mindlessly sentimental than worrying about property rights. Only a sentimental fool would worry about someone being barred from making decisions about their loved one’s medical care.

FWIW, I have a gay friend (a hair stylist of all things) whose long time partner died a few years ago (cancer, tragic, he was young). His partner’s family went stark raving nuts, up to and including attempting to get him kicked out of the house the two of them were buying together. It was only by the skin of his teeth (and good lawyers) that he was able to keep his house.

For all intents and purposes, those two men were married, and had been for 15-years or so. But even the legal framework they constructed in the absence of being allowed to get legally married was just barely enough for justice to prevail.

I guess this is one of the reasons why I believe allowing full marriage - no substitutes - is the only solution to problems like this. Anything less will somehow get turned into a way to discriminate…

If that’s ever actually happened, that’s terrible. However, I have a really hard time believing it does outside of one or two freak incidences, rather like lighting strikes in frequency. But if you have evidence that this is any kind of widespread happening, I’d be more than happy to reconsider my stance.

The entire reason why gay marriage came up as a problem in the first place is that you had thousands of gay men dying of AIDS whose partners discovered after the fact that the few legal protections afforded to unmarried partners meant that they were thrown out of hospital rooms, barred from their partner’s funeral by family members who hadn’t spoken to their partner in decades, and lost property they had purchased with their partner to the legal heirs.

Are you too young to remember any of this? I know it was 20 years ago. But you had — and still have — people who lived together for 30 years who were left with nothing because they had no legal rights within that partnership.

You’ve chosen not to marry. Good for you. Why is it so important to you that other people not be allowed to marry, either? Why is it important to the point that you’re willing to deny them civil rights because that civil right is not important to you personally?

The right to sit at a lunch counter and be served is, by far, a less important right than the right to be allowed to form a family with the person of your choice. Are you going to start talking about how stupid civil rights people were for doing sit-ins over such a minor right?