Marriage equality raises many issues of social justice and discrimination in the workplace, particularly with benefits and how they are allocated to partners. This week I had a letter published in our local weekly newspaper about this. I wrote and rewrote it a number of times before finding strategic advice for advancing freedom to marry.
Dear Editors:
I would like to respond to X’s The Catholic View: Same Sex Unions and the Compromise of American Values
Many of my friends are in committed, long-term relationships with people of the same sex. They face many of the same struggles that I do with my husband: How can we balance work and home life? How can we make our work lives meaningful? and, of course, What’s for dinner?
Yet, my friends are denied the freedom to marry their long-term loving partners. They can be denied hospital visitation rights, health insurance rights, and tax and inheritance benefits. In fact, there are more than 100 legal rights that I have with my husband that are denied to my friends.
I am not interested in forcing the Catholic Church to acknowledge marriage of people of the same sex. But marriage is also a legal contract, one that is licensed by individual states, and in this country, we discriminate against same sex relationships. It is unfair and it is wrong.