Gay couples around the globe have been fighting for equal civil rights under law as domestic partners and for the legalization of gay marriages. This has been a hotly contested topic in many states and elections and was also a question to both Obama and McCain to take a position on the topic. Both have taken the position of opposing outright marriage but supporting civil unions. Religious organizations and Republican politicians have usually taken a strong stance against gay marriages. Obama said he believes that same-sex couples should have the rights and privileges as married couples, but that the relationship should be called a civil union rather than a marriage.
In the US, same sex marriages were not considered legal for a long time. However, recently things have changed. Thanks to a court ruling, same-sex couples now have a constitutional right to marry. This news has been taken as a positive step towards giving equal rights to individuals in the US. Currently, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California are the states that have legalized gay marriages.
On May 17, 2004 Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize gay marriages. The State of Massachusetts has also become so progressive on the topic that it issues licenses to gay couples from Rhode Island and New Mexico since neither state explicitly prohibits same-sex marriage.
In a 4-3 decision, Connecticut’s Supreme Court overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
New Jersey is the third U.S. state to offer same-sex civil unions behind Vermont and Connecticut. The new same-sex civil unions law, which went into affect on February 19, 2007, granted gay and lesbian couples the same rights as marriage. Although same-sex unions in New Jersey are classified as civil unions, couples are granted the same rights as married heterosexual couples.
On May 15th, 2008, California’s Supreme Court ruled that banning same-sex marriage in the state was discriminatory. In a 4-3 decision, the justices ruled that people have a fundamental ‘right to marry’ the person of their choice and that gender restrictions violated the California’s state Constitution equal protection guarantee.
On May 29, 2008, New York issued a directive that only recognizes gay marriages from couples legally married outside of the state.
No matter where you stance is on the topic of gay relationships you should agree that gay couples should have all of the same legal rights as heterosexual couples. It is not unusual for companies to have programs with health care benefits to the partners of heterosexual employees. Some are now extending them to the partners of their homosexual employees as well. This is definitely a growing indicator of the growing social acceptance of homosexual relationships being equivalent to heterosexual marriages.
In August of 2000, the automakers Daimler-Chrysler, Ford Motor Company and General Motors announced that they would extend health care benefits to gay couples.
Other large companies which now provide domestic-partner benefits are: AT&T, American Express, American Airlines, Amoco, Avon, Barnes & Noble, Boeing, Citigroup, Chevron Oil, Clorox, Coca-Cola, Coors Brewing, Disney, Eastman Kodak, Gap, General Mills, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Levi Strauss, Mattel, Microsoft, Nike, Nynex, Pacific Telesis, Pillsbury, Proctor and Gamble, Quark, Reebok, Shell, Starbucks Coffee, Sun Microsystems, Time Warner, United Airlines, US Airways, US West, and Xerox.
What do you think about the topic of gay marriage and whether gay couples should be allowed domestic partner benefits?
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