Legal Stuff (no relation to previous post)

[moon_custafer]

As I'd mentioned my current data-entry temp job mostly involves forms stating the beneficiaries for people insurance policies and retirement funds. I spend all day looking at documentation of people trying to make sure their families will be ok financially.

It's made me think about the marriage equality movement, and among other things, how it's been a useful counterbalance to the "it's just a piece of paper, our love doesn't need society's validation" argument* - because however true that might be emotionally, a piece of paper that says "if I die, the person I love and live with will continue to receive my pension and no one can argue that" is worth a whole packet of sonnets, and I say that as a sonnet-loving former English major.


* An argument that can be heard from either gay or straight couples, though mostly straight, simply because of statistics and because society usually does validate their relationship without being asked.

Comments

[fragrantwoods.livejournal.com]

I look at this two ways: part of he marriage equality thing is that. while it is possible to replicate everything that "piece of paper" does in a civil union, it usually requires a LOT more money, more separate legal papers and angles, and the couple has to make sure (or get an experienced attorney) that they've covered every single base.
Getting married is easier.

However, I imagine plenty of straight couples, especially if they're petty young, don't know every single thing that changes, and how those things change, and how the state you live in looks at property rights, etc. Getting married can be too easy (just ask the Kardashian girl).

I bet there's some stories to be had in who is and isn't listed as beneficiaries. And yay for finding something interesting to mull over in a data entry job :-)

[donald hutton (from livejournal.com)]

It also determines who gets to visit you if incapacitated or dying. When I was in university there was a gay guy who got sick and died after a few days in the hospital. Something to do with his GI tract. His partner couldn't visit him because he was "just a friend" that the dying guy's family, the people that he hated and who took up his final hours screaming abuse at him, forbade to see him.