This.  The case was really about a man trying to get the death benifits from his late husband.  It essetially became a tax issue though and this is the point.  The matter was actually quite simple  A matter of gender discrimination but got blown out of proportion when states tried to invalidate his marriage to deny him benifits.  Which is rather cruel.  

As a gay person who never plans to get married, (I view marriage as a silly waste of money and personal freedom, I don't need marriage to show that I trust and love another person.) I hope all 1,138 of those are demolished.  Truly equal treatment would entail the same benefits for all people, regardless of whether or not they are "married", non-married but a couple, or single. The only issue is next-of-kin, but that was dealt with for millenia before state-sanctioned and licensed marriages. With people more literate than ever, it should not be an issue to privately deal with whom you believe to be your next of kin and the recepient of your goods as well as the decision maker in the event that you are incapacitated through a signed contract. For those who don't want specific contracts, they can purchase pre-made but popular contracts that deal with all the legal issue from a laywer or even the state if it wants to sell that service in a competitive market. This allows for people who want to specify their relationship to do so, and for those who want the one-sized fit all relationships to do so. Instead of having the state tell me who is my next of kin, I get to choose for myself.

You have to understand, that sometimes you have familial disputes during these trying times, and not every family is accepting of how their sons/daughters etc... are born.  There are horror stories where, because the State doesn't recognize the marriage, the family (blood relatives) of the ill/victim/decedent can refuse entry to the spouse.  I mean just utter utter cruelty and meanness.  It's these kinds of situations that really impact me.  I cannot fathom being kept out of my ill/dying spouses hospital room, because of a power/hate struggle with blood relatives.

For me, as a single, straight, white male, my concern is that every citizen of the country is treated with equal respect under the eyes of the law.  I don't demand everyone like each other (a fools errand), simply that the law doesn't treat any citizens as beneath anyone else (The Law should be blind to everything but whether they're a citizen or not).  The way 'marriage' is woven deeply into US State and Federal Law, demands that everyone have equal access to it.  By the State/Feds own hands, it goes well beyond just tax benefits.

I'd personally be fine with seeing the word marriage erased from all fed/state law.  Given the fury over this, it really shouldn't be a difficult case to argue.  The religious think marriage is their word, as such, it has no place being recognized by American law.  Just make sure when it is removed, and everyone has to go and get new licenses for <insert word that replaces marriage here>, we all point out that if certain religious organizations/people hadn't been such utter pricks about this, you wouldn't have to deal with another layer of bureaucracy.

Great point but don't wait up for an answer here mate, A+ for trying the logic route tho.

Best to just sit and wait a few hours for another pseudo intellectual copy paste from a facebook post heh.

"Religio depopulata" actually had me laughing out loud, literally doesn't mean anything.

Well that is why you would create a contract stating who receives what and whom decides what. It is the same thing as a marriage license, except it is more specific to your situation. If you don't want to go through all the time and effort to make that contract, then you can purchase a pre-designed one from a trusted lawyer or even the state and that can be used in court during the event of such a dispute. Hospitals will recognize the contract in the same way they recognize a marriage license. If they don't recognize the contract, then the family members would face serious civil litigation, and if it is clear enough - the hospital as well. That would act as a deterrent just like refusing a state-recognized spouse has legal consequences.

I agree that as long as the state is involved it should treat people equally. However, I think a lot of people aren't realizing that non-married persons, who aren't married for whichever reason, also don't get a lot of these benefits and that is wrong and unequal treatment. That is all that is being asked for.  Equal treatment for ALL, not just people who have state approved contractual agreements.

I don't think it is just the word that should be removed though. It should be the actual institution. The state should not recognize certain contracts or institutions over others. It should only enforce the contracts themselves. If the state wants to give out "marriage contracts" that people can sign and become legally binded by I have no problem with that (besides the allocation of tax resources) as long as it allows competition and will recognize and enforce other forms of "marriage contracts" or contracts between individuals that aren't called "marriage." In the end that is all marriage is - a contract - and I find it dissproportionally unegalitarian on the states' part to only recognize a certain subset of such spousal contracts. I understand that it would take a while to dismantle this bueracracy and it won't be easy, but that is okay. It took a while to construct the very same bureaucracy. That is why I support temporary steps like legalizing "gay marriage" before dismantling state-recognized marriage in its entirety. One is a short-term solution, the other a long-term one.

In theory, I agree with virtually everything you've said here.  The problem is the speed in which the US Government works, especially on divisive issues, and most especially on divisive issues that include religious issues.  So, because you cannot force anyone to propose legislation, and then force anyone to vote yes for legislation that is proposed, there has to be a short-term solution while the Government catches up.  Otherwise, well, you'd have zero movement and the same problems for decade after decade.  I don't think this judgement is the final say in this issue, but for now, it provides access to those who've previously been excluded from receiving the full support of US law.

I agree 100%.  I have no issue with gay-marriage legalization as a short-term solution, but I just hope all people, regardless of their sexuality, remember that these very same benefits they have been awarded (particularly the ones independent from the nature of marriage - like tax breaks) are not allocated to people who choose not to be married or who choose to be single. A common argument against this is "anyone can get married", but that is the very same thing that the religious right said to non hetero-sexuals, "anyone can marry the opposite sex." Ironically, as a sort of reaction to gay marriage legalisation the religious and social conservatives are supporting getting the state out of marriage. Of course, for the wrong reasons, but hey it is the solution that would make everyone happy.

a single person, doesn't have to testify against themself in court. A someone married doesn't have to testify against their spose, how are you going to set that up as contracts?  Getting married in a sense buddles a whole lot of contracts together. Some of those are not just rights thoguht but resposiblitties, comitments, it's not all tax breaks and butterflies, but alimony, and shared debt.

if the state doesn't recognise same sex relationship with common law, then those benefits aren't there.

The simple thing that it comes down to, if you were to get rid or marrage and say it all had to be individual contracts, who would be the one enforcing the contracts? who would you go to if someone wasn't living up to there end of it? the government. So to try and say they are out of "that business" is foolish. 

Yes the communicative and testimonial priveleges should be abolished. Such laws already vary among states. Notice that in most cases that the first only protects private conversations after they were married. What is so special about marriage that gives them this privelege? Why couldn't they be afforded this privelege when they were dating? Alimony agreements can be made through written (or as in the case of marriage) verbal contracts which are rewarded among the judge's reasoning. Again, if forming contracts is too much of a bother, you can use the money you would have paid for a marriage license to purchase a pre-formatted contract bundle which your lawyer would summarize for you and your partner(s). If you are that lazy that is and you don't want to put in the work for a fool-proof legal contract that you both agree with. 

The statutory law =/= common law. All a person needs to do is tell a judge he/she is married and the judge is obliged to accept it, as long as there is evidence to substantiate this (a signed contract or some other record that shows they are cohabiting and both agree.) Common law is the law created by precedent cases of judges, and it works very differently from statutes.

The state will enforce contracts in any system in which the state has a monopoly on the issuance of law. It will not oblige state mandated licensing (what it does now), it will not impose its own stipulations to these contracts (as it does now) , nor will it give special priveleges to certain contracts over others (as it does now.) The argument is not to get the state to stop enforcing contracts (that is a different argument to be made.) The argument is for them to enforce them equally and fairly and for it to not alter said contracts with its own statutes.

If you are interested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage

strongly disgree with your first paragraph. and there is a big diffrerence between dating someone and getting married to them. I don't want to give the state more room for abuse by trying to lock up one partner "for not talking" to get to the other one even if they do know nothing.

second paragraph, and how well have things like that worked out for same sex comples? to much doubt left it for many who have been committed for decades.

third paragraph, far too libertarian for me, ifthe state will the one enforcing it, it should meet certain standards or be thrown out. such as someone has already committed to something in a contract and can't commit to it again,state laws aren't just there for the betterment of the state but for legal protections of it's citizens.

beyond that. Social security benefits and other types of death benefits, from pensions, vetrans benefits et. You want to say they aren't fair to people who were single, but the people who were given those benefits new that there spose would get them, taking them away to be "equal" would be very wrong.

getting citizenship to a spose. how would you replace this or this anther one that should just go away?