Anyone being affected by Proposition 8?

[classicman]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

Then when you break up you are?

FREEEEEEEEEEEE

[Ibby]

Single
Engaged
In a Civil Union
Divorced
Widowed

I don't see the issue.

[Lamplighter]

Then when you break up you are uncivilly ununioned. Nah, that sounds too much like onion.

un-union = un-unionized = ionized

[infinite monkey]

You can't hide your ionize...

[Sundae]

Why should you have to declare yourself divorced anyway?
For all legal and tax purposes you are single once a divorce is finalised.
Why should you have to admit to a failed union?

And no, I'm not being facetious.
I'm divorced myself and have always considered it a peculiar question.

[infinite monkey]

I've actually wondered that too.

And engaged doesn't count.

Nor does pre-engaged, or engaged to be pre-engaged.

You're either in a union or you're not.

But...what about widowed?

[Ibby]

Why can't losing your civil partner be called widowed?

[Sundae]

I think Shawnee is asking - why is it necessary?
For Civil Union or Married.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Ibram

Why can't losing your civil partner be called widowed?

Because it is a sacred institution, and gay widows would destroy traditional widowhood.

[infinite monkey]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Because it is a sacred institution, and gay widows would destroy traditional widowhood.

Seriously. Can you imagine the widow walks on tops of old houses? They'd be converted to catwalks! They'd be FABULOUS.

@Ibram...Sundae got what I meant. She was asking about having to report divorced instead of single, and I was making the tangential point of why widowed instead of single.

[Sundae]

Spanx

[Sundae]

Quite the opposite!
I'd prefer to see only regular church-goers get a blessing for their union in church. And all those who go just for a pretty location stop pretending.

The Church of England is pretty tolerant of people who attend three times in their life - Christening, Wedding and Funeral. I say good on them. But open it to all couples. So that gay church-goers have the same right of blessing as hetero unbelievers who will never come back.

ETA - I don't mean to contradict my previous statement.
I would not want any church, synagogue or mosque to be forced into a blessing. I believe progress in tolerance is inevitable and people will vote with their feet.

[Clodfobble]

For some government programs, widowed does matter, because you are given certain benefits that would have gone to your dead spouse instead. But I've seen many forms that go so far as to offer a checkbox for "Separated." WTF business is it of theirs what bed a person sleeps in, if their marriage contract is still in effect?

[Lamplighter]

Associated Press
By ANGELA DELLI SANTI

NJ Assembly passes gay marriage bill

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The New Jersey Assembly on Thursday passed a bill
legalizing same-sex marriages, setting the stage for an expected veto by Gov. Chris Christie.

The 42-33 vote sends the bill to Christie, who won't take immediate action.

The Republican governor who opposes gay marriage had promised
"very swift action" if the bill passed both houses of the Legislature,
but the Assembly isn't required to send the bill to his desk until the close of business Friday.
The Senate approved the bill Monday.<snip>

The bill would need several Republican votes in each house to override the governor;
Christie himself essentially guaranteed that that won't happen.

NJ is different and interesting because the State's Supreme Court has already reviewed
the State's Civil Union Law, and has:

" instructed the Legislature to provide marriage equality to same-sex couples".

The article also describes strategies of the various parties.

[Lamplighter]

I have rearranged the sequence of paragraphs below to (hopefully) make this post more readable.

msnbc.com
Miranda Leitsinger
7/13/12

Same-sex couple fights to stop deportation, gay marriage ban

DOMA, enacted by Congress in 1996, blocks federal recognition of same-sex marriage,
thereby denying various benefits given to heterosexual couples, such as the right to immigrate.

A Filipino woman who married her American wife in 2008,
when it was briefly legal to do so in the state of California,
should not be denied immigration rights that heterosexual couples receive
and should not be deported, her lawyers are arguing in a lawsuit.

Authorities approved her employer’s application for permanent resident status
for her in May 2006, and she had temporary lawful status until April 2011,
when immigration officials told her she was inadmissible to the country.
They said she had misrepresented her name and marital status
because she had entered the U.S. under the last name of her former
spouse [common law husband],
even though they were not legally married, according to the lawsuit.

The couple attempted to get a waiver based upon the hardship that deportation
would impose upon them and DeLeon’s 25-year-old son, whose immigration status
would also be affected if his mother was deported, but it was denied last November.
Authorities, the lawsuit said, did not reject the request because the couple
failed to prove the hardship claim, but solely because under the federal marriage law
she was married to someone of the same sex who was not recognized as a relative.

The lawsuit alleges that the federal marriage law [DOMA] denies due process
and equal protection under the law in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The couple is asking the court to grant their request to give class action status
to the lawsuit since their challenge affects innumerable others in their situation.

The suit joins several others targeting DOMA, the federal law banning same-sex marriages,
including one filed by binational gay couples in New York.
The Obama administration has asked the Supreme Court to take up two of those cases:
one originating in Massachusetts and another in California, according to scotusblog.