(no subject)

[oakenguy]

The statewide hubbub about gay marriages has made me stop and think: why, exactly, DO married couples get legal and economic benefits that single people don't?

Yes, this is my greed talking.

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[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

I've been pointing that out one person at a time as the issue comes up.

Becusae on that wonderful blessed day where everyone descended on St. Ladislaus of the Vaugely Verdant Hillock with the bishop performing the ceremony and the choir singing and the twelve-piece orchestra playing and the shower of rice and bird seed afterward the happy couple got two things. One was out in front of everyone, the other was taken care of in the vestry where they signed their names onto a little piece of paper with a state seal on it. I call that a "widget" now because it doesn't have a better name yet.

The former was happy and wonderful and loving and spiritual and made your two-ness a part of the community in a special way. The widget is where the rubber hits the road. (Both are important.)

Property rights, tax benefits, visitation rights, survivorship benefits, implicit power of attorney in some cases, insurance benefits, heck, even qualifying for the "family plan" cell phone contract or the "family price" meal at the Bucket-O-Pasta(tm). There are zillions of benefits (and responsibilities, for that matter) that are given to people with widgets. And these are (generally) freely transferrable to all 50 states, territories and posessions and generally transferrable around the world.

Some of these can be simulated in some areas by some kinds of agreements which are sometimes transferrable. More often, many important ones can't be.

Single people pay full price for everything. It sucks.