11 Aug Civil Rights for Same-Sex Couples
Our second Unitarian Universalist Principle concerns our search for justice. Attention is drawn to the 1,138 rights denied at the Federal level to same-sex couples. Massachusetts has made some corrections but more adjustment is needed in the areas listed below:
- Laws relating to the acquisition, ownership or transfer of real or personal property of estates or interstate succession.
- Laws relating to government protections, including worker’s compensation, unemployment insurance, public assistance, transfer of licenses upon death, and ability to apply for absentee ballots and other documents for a spouse.
- Laws relating to domestic relations and family maintenance, including the rights and obligations of support during and after relationship division of marital property and evidentiary privileges.
Married couples have many rights and obligations that are not available to unmarried couples. It is also true that civil unions generally provide only a subset of the rights and obligations of civil marriages. If you are interested in seeing an excellent overview on this topic, we recommend that you look at a document published by GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders). It’s called “Protections, Benefits and Obligations of Marriage under Massachusetts and Federal Law: Some Key provisions of a Work-in-Progress.”
To read this document, click here: PBOsOfMarriage
For much more information that GLAD has gathered on the topic of marriage, please see: https://www.glad.org/rights/topics/c/marriage