Word: same-sex
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...would let you visit a sick partner. That was about it. FORTUNE 500 companies were only beginning to allow partners of gay and lesbian employees to buy into health insurance plans. Most big cities didn't offer their employees such arrangements; in 1993 plans to extend health benefits to same-sex partners of city employees in Atlanta and Seattle caused great public consternation...
...state senate had asked the court if it could establish civil unions to meet the constitutional requirement of equality for gay couples set forth in an earlier ruling. "The answer," the court replied, "is 'No.'" Why not? "Because the proposed law [establishing civil unions] by its express terms forbids same-sex couples entry into civil marriage [and therefore] continues to relegate same-sex couples to a different status ... The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal...
...fully equal since "differences in Federal law and the law of other States will frustrate the goal of complete equality." What she meant is that even after Zach and Brad marry in Massachusetts, the couple will not be married in, say, Alaska, which has a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriages. (In all, 39 states have laws or amendments restricting marriage to straight couples.) What's more, the couple will not be married in the eyes of the Federal Government, which enacted a law in 1996--supporters called it the Defense of Marriage Act--defining marriage as "only a legal...
Sosman wrote that "once the euphoria of [the case] subsides, the reality of the still less than truly equal status of same-sex couples will emerge." With all the practical differences between straight and gay unions, she argued, "it is eminently reasonable to give a different name to the legal status being conferred on same-sex couples by the proposed bill." But the majority dismissed that reasoning. It countered that federal and other states' laws were "irrelevant ... Courts define what is constitutionally permissible, and the Massachusetts Constitution does not permit this type of labeling...
...Wolfson was trying to promote same-sex marriage, Matt Daniels was becoming convinced that it would damage the institution of the family. Daniels, 40, runs the Alliance for Marriage, which wrote the Federal Marriage Amendment now before Congress. Daniels comes to the issues of marriage and family breakdown from a very personal place. His father walked out when he was 2, leaving his mom to work as a secretary. One night when Daniels was in third grade, she was assaulted on her way home. "She ends up with a broken back, disabled, on welfare, depressed," says Daniels, trailing...