"Ajax Telamon" wrote in message
...

"Joy" wrote in message
...
Just wondering.....

This is speculation on my part, since I'm heterosexual, but I think that
things like being able to cover each other on health insurance, social
security benefits, the ability to file income tax jointly, being able to
sit
with each other in the intensive care unit, bereavement leave, FMLA
rights
to care for a sick spouse or spouses children, ability to make medical
decisions for a sick spouse, immigration access for spouses, spousal
privilege in lawsuits, and so forth would matter just as much to gay
couples
as straight couples.

Don't forget that all important inheritance tax (AKA death tax). A person
can leave unlimited assets to their spouse and no taxes would be owing.
But
if you are not married, the tax kicks in on estates just over $1 million
which when you think about it is not all that large an amount. Almost
anyone
who starts out saving at a young age, saves modestly and invests in common
stocks can accumulate that much in a few decades. The tax rates can go as
high as 55%. Many gay people has substantial assets and marriage would
protect them from the tax man. The inheritance tax is supposedly semi
repealed but for now it is in force.

Mmm Good point.
I can see why many (In Government)
would oppose them marrying for those reasons....


--
Jez
"The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious,
of being out of one's mind, is the condition of the normal man. Society
highly values its normal man.It educates children to lose themselves
and to become absurd,and thus to be normal. Normal men have killed
perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years."
R.D. Laing