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Should gay people be allowed to bury their loved ones?

joe six-pack

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Since I've never heard a good argument against gay-marriage I thought I would pose a common sense question to those who oppose it. Lawful Marriage (distinctly different from religious marriage) gives two people next-of-kin status with all the duties and responsibilities involved. Part of those duties and responsibilities are making live-or-death medical decisions and making funerary decisions. Also marriage has a slue of property and inheritance duties and privileges, for example, if your spouse owes dept, you will inherit that dept.

So my question is simple: should gay people be allowed to bury their loved ones?

This is a legal question, but also a moral one. We cannot hope to protect a vague concept of a "Christian Marriage" since gay-friendly Churches already preform homo-marriages and have done so since pre-1970. A Church will never be forced to preform a ceremony it doesn't want to; whether that is a funeral or wedding or bar-mitzvah or superbowl half-time show. But we shouldn't preclude homosexuals from basic human events such a Lawful marriage, the ability to inherit their spouses dept, the ability to make life-or-death decisions and ability to bury their loved ones and keep all their cool stuff.

Thanks.
 
I think anyone should be buried by loved ones. I don't consider orientation to be a factor whatsoever.

Who'd have thought that three letters would cause such an uproar.
 
You should be allowed to bury anyone as long as that person gave obvious implied, or written approval
 
You should be allowed to bury anyone as long as that person gave obvious implied, or written approval

Exactly, wishes just need to be known. That would also apply to any property. Just need a will.
 
Just need a will.

A will does not give you unlimited spousal deduction. Furthermore, wills can be challenged. Legal automatic transfer of assets to spouse upon death with no taxation cannot. There are more then a few pretty damn important rights that homosexuals cannot mimic under current law to substitute for marriage.
 
A will does not give you unlimited spousal deduction. Furthermore, wills can be challenged. Legal automatic transfer of assets to spouse upon death with no taxation cannot. There are more then a few pretty damn important rights that homosexuals cannot mimic under current law to substitute for marriage.

That's true, but the original question was about burial. I'm for civil unions and I think that would take care of everything you mentioned. Including being responsible for any debt.
There should be no death tax to begin with. :) Too bad they will be back again in Jan. thanks to the Dems.
 
That's true, but the original question was about burial.

Not entirely. Joe's OP was more then that.

I'm for civil unions and I think that would take care of everything you mentioned. Including being responsible for any debt.

Not entirely. Most civil unions do not grant the same rights, furthermore, civil union treatment is hardly equivalent to marriage at the federal level. The better option is for the state to entirely get out of "marriage" and treat it entirely as spouse blind civil unions granting equivalent rights to gays and straights. Let churchs, NGOs and whatever deal with marriage.
 
They should be allowed to of course, but without marriage licensing they will not necessarily be able to determine where their loved one gets buried, or to affirm that they have the right to buy a double lot so that they can be buried together when the surviving spouse dies. The next of kin could decide that, and if the deceased's family does not want to honour the same-sex relationship, they can legally act like it wasn't a real partnership in the first place. That's why wills lose power if same-sex relationships don't have official status. Asset transfers can be challenged by "real family members". All it takes is getting a civil judge who isn't sympathetic to gay rights and all of the property will go to the next of kin. It happens all the time.

Same-sex partners deserve social, material, and legal security and marriage licensing is the only way to grant them that in a completely equal fashion. Relationships shouldn't have to exist in secret or be defended from the mob. They are inherently human and that includes all of the rites that go along with them, like burial. This shouldn't even be a question. It's a given.
 
No, they should be required to blast them into the sun.
 
No, they should be required to blast them into the sun.

I think gay cooties are very resistant to heat. We don't need a pink and lavander sun.
 
As long as they are dead...yeah sure.
Otherwise. No.
 
Since I've never heard a good argument against gay-marriage I thought I would pose a common sense question to those who oppose it. Lawful Marriage (distinctly different from religious marriage) gives two people next-of-kin status with all the duties and responsibilities involved. Part of those duties and responsibilities are making live-or-death medical decisions and making funerary decisions. Also marriage has a slue of property and inheritance duties and privileges, for example, if your spouse owes dept, you will inherit that dept.

So my question is simple: should gay people be allowed to bury their loved ones?

This is a legal question, but also a moral one. We cannot hope to protect a vague concept of a "Christian Marriage" since gay-friendly Churches already preform homo-marriages and have done so since pre-1970. A Church will never be forced to preform a ceremony it doesn't want to; whether that is a funeral or wedding or bar-mitzvah or superbowl half-time show. But we shouldn't preclude homosexuals from basic human events such a Lawful marriage, the ability to inherit their spouses dept, the ability to make life-or-death decisions and ability to bury their loved ones and keep all their cool stuff.

Thanks.

only if they are dead.
 
I am against ssm, but I have no problem with gays (or anyone) burying a loved one.
 
I believe if the deceased has expressed desire for them to do so, then absolutely. Every individual should be totally free to decide who can be their proxy in any decision as to their own wellbeing or death decisions. Each person should be allowed that autonomy.
 
That's true, but the original question was about burial. I'm for civil unions and I think that would take care of everything you mentioned.

What if the departed were a veteran and wanted his partner buried next to him in a national cemetery. I don't think a will or even civil unions would suffice in that instance, would it? :confused: I think that would require a change in federal law.
 
I am against ssm, but I have no problem with gays (or anyone) burying a loved one.
I think most people who say that don't know the first thing about what Lawful Marriage is. Lawful Marriage, as I mentioned in the OP, makes two people legally next-of-kin. Therefore, you are saying you are against two homosexuals making a public contract which grants them the legal responsibilities associated with next-of-kin status. Matrimony provisions have nothing to do with procreation and everything to do with property rights, inheritance, medical decisions, funeral decisions, but mostly dept and credit transfer.

To oppose these lawful benefits and penalties for homosexuals is irrational.

You probably have some emotional reason for opposing these legal rights and penalties for homosexuals. What is it, may I ask? When we understand what Lawful Marriage is, a rational person would agree it's irrational to oppose it for homosexuals, hermaphrodites, and people born different from you and me. Legally, the concept of marriage is identical to the concept of a civil-union. Marriage literally means "union." So it is not a degradation of the word to include a union between two woman.

:peace
 
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Whenever I hear, "Should ________ people be allowed to..." my immediate reaction is "yes" without even knowing what the question is. (obviously nothing that the rest of society deems illegal and whatnot - that is a disclaimer to all the obtuse silly people out there. ;))
 
Originally Posted by RightinNYC
No, they should be required to blast them into the sun.

That would be one bad ass funeral.

But it is bad to look directly into the sun... how would you know that they arrived and simply didn't follow the natural curvature of space/time, ending up floating through space forever. That seems cruel. You seem cruel.
 
I think gay cooties are very resistant to heat. We don't need a pink and lavander sun.

I thought that there were only boy and girl cooties... and when I first read your post I thought it said "gay coyotes" and I was seriously lost as to why that would require a pink or lavander sun.
 
I think most people who say that don't know the first thing about what Lawful Marriage is. Lawful Marriage, as I mentioned in the OP, makes two people legally next-of-kin. Therefore, you are saying you are against two homosexuals making a public contract which grants them the legal responsibilities associated with next-of-kin status. Matrimony provisions have nothing to do with procreation and everything to do with property rights, inheritance, medical decisions, funeral decisions, but mostly dept and credit transfer.
To oppose these lawful benefits and penalties for homosexuals is irrational.

You probably have some emotional reason for opposing these legal rights and penalties for homosexuals. What is it, may I ask? When we understand what Lawful Marriage is, a rational person would agree it's irrational to oppose it for homosexuals, hermaphrodites, and people born different from you and me. Legally, the concept of marriage is identical to the concept of a civil-union. Marriage literally means "union." So it is not a degradation of the word to include a union between two woman.

:peace

Actually marriage originally had everything to with procreation and nothing to do with those things. Of course once the state started sactioning marriage and collecting fees for it that all changed.
 
You should be allowed to bury anyone as long as that person gave obvious implied, or written approval

If they assume room temperature, does that count as implied consent?
 
Actually marriage originally had everything to with procreation and nothing to do with those things. Of course once the state started sactioning marriage and collecting fees for it that all changed.

Marriage has had many purposes throughout history, in every culture. Many cultures used marriage to establish family connections and/or social status, especially marriages in the upper echelons of pretty much any society of the past, and even some marriages today. A part of earlier marriages was establishing blood lines and procreation, but it was most likely not the most important part of marriage, and certainly not everything that marriage was.

And the only reason the state initially started sanctioning marriages was to limit who could get married. They could care less if the couple was going to have children, even if it was that they just didn't want to have children, as long as the couple was an appropriate couple.
 
Actually marriage originally had everything to with procreation and nothing to do with those things. Of course once the state started sactioning marriage and collecting fees for it that all changed.

SEX originally had everything to with procreation while marriage originally had everything to with clan/tribe stability...
 
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