Wen and Tara's
Excellent Adventures
Without gay marriage, couples who share their lives in loving relationships are denied basic marital rights such as property inheritance and joint ownership of assets, pension benefits, employment benefits, and even hospital visitation rights. For more information on all of the 1000+ federal and roughly 300 state rights that are granted only to married couples, we recommend the book, Why You Should Give A Damn About Gay Marriage Currently in the US, only Massachusetts, Connecticut and California have legalized same-sex marriages (although California is currently in a state of limbo over the marriages). New York is recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. So what about all of those federal rights? Yes, it’s true that our marriage is not yet recognized on a federal level, but as more states move to abolish discriminatory laws, we can see light at the end of the federal tunnel. Believe me, we’ve heard all of the arguments against gay marriage, the most popular of which seems to be that marriage is a religious institution and should not be extended to gays and lesbians because gay weddings threaten the sanctity of marriage.
In response, we honestly don’t mind if people disagree with our views provided that they don’t go out of their way to discriminate against us. We recognize that marriage is a contractual agreement between two people and that the institution demands a license that is issued by the state and not a church. It’s a personal choice for couples to incorporate their religious traditions in ceremony, but thanks to the separation of church and state, it’s not required that people marry in a church, have a religious ceremony or even believe in God in order to have a legal marriage. In fact, even with the most religious of ceremonies, a couple cannot be legally married until their paperwork is filed with a government office. It is true then, that marriage is not always, and cannot exclusively exist as a religious institution and so there is no logical basis for denying GLBT couples the right to civil marriage. 
And if social justice isn’t enough to convince you to support same-sex marriage, one more reason to care about equality is because gay marriage is giving the economy a much needed boost. The San Francisco controller’s office has estimated that the marriages will bring $19.8 million to the city’s economy by 2010 and researchers at UCLA have reported that the marriages could bring $684 million to the state’s economy during the next three years.
