Marriage Equality

Why Marriage?
Marriage Equality Landscape
Marriage Q&A
The Story Collection Project

Ending discrimination in marriage for gay couples is about recognizing the love and commitment of gay couples who have taken on the responsibilities of raising a family and contributing to their communities.

Despite taking on the work of marriage and family, these couples are denied the rights and responsibilities that come with marriage. This hurts real families in every part of our state.

Many people ask why we can't provide equal rights through some new legal system like civil unions. But ending discrimination in marriage for gay couples is the only way to ensure equality. Civil unions can be important steps on the road to equality, but they are separate and unequal.

Marriage is the common currency by which our society recognizes love, commitment, and family.

There is no rational justification for continuing the denial of marriage to gay couples. We have seen from the experiences of Massachusetts, Canada, and many other countries, that no one gets hurt, and in fact, many more people are helped when we end discrimination in marriage for gay couples.

Love & Commitment

Loving and committed lesbian and gay couples live in every part of Wisconsin. According to the most recent U.S. Census data, there are at least 15,000 gay couples—and that's just those who were willing to identify themselves on a government form. In fact from 2000 to 2005, Wisconsin ranked second out of all states in the percentage increase in gay couples.

These thousands of families yearn for the important social recognition that marriage provides. Marriage is the clearest way to communicate to family, neighbors, and community that “we are a family.”

Although the legal protections of marriage are very important, for many couples marriage is primarily about love and commitment. These couples are doing each other's laundry, paying bills together, changing their kid's diapers, celebrating birthdays, making each other's lunches, grieving deaths in the family--being a family. They want and deserve the recognition that they are doing the work of marriage and that their love for each other is just as strong as it is for any other couple.

Many couples who have held ceremonies to celebrate their love and commitment with friends and family have found it to be a transformative experience that strengthens their relationship and connections to their extended families. The right to equal marriage would further strengthen these families.

The Rights & Responsibilities

When a Wisconsin county clerk gives out a marriage license, it's not merely symbolic. A marriage license is a legal contract and a gateway to hundreds of rights and responsibilities that help couples protect and sustain their families. Marriage gives couples access to hundreds of benefits under Wisconsin law and over 1,000 under federal law. These include:

Assumption of a deceased spouse's pension
Automatic housing lease transfer
Automatic inheritance
Bereavement leave
Burial determination
Child custody
Confidentiality of conversations
Crime victim's recovery benefits
Divorce protections
Domestic violence protection
Exemption from property tax on partner's death
Family leave to care for a sick partner
Foster care custody
Immunity from testifying against spouse
Insurance breaks
Joint adoption
Joint bankruptcy
Medical decision-making rights on behalf of partner
Property rights
Reduced rate or family memberships
Social Security benefits for a deceased spouse
Spousal immigration rights
Tax advantages
Visitation of partner in hospital
Wrongful death benefit

Denying these rights and responsibilities to lesbian and gay couples can force them and their families into difficult, even tragic situations.

For one couple in Milwaukee, the denial of legal recognition threatened their child's health. When the couple's young daughter had an allergic reaction to a bee sting, school authorities would not allow one mother to take the child to the hospital unless she first had written permission from her partner--the legally recognized mother. This meant the young girl could not go to the hospital until her mother first drove across town for a permission note.

Other couples have been separated during life-threatening emergencies, and surviving partners have been locked out of their own homes by relatives contesting the will of a deceased partner.

Lesbian and gay couples who take on the love and commitment of marriage should have the legal rights and responsibilities that come with marriage.

Fair-minded people should agree that it's wrong to deny children the right to two legally recognized parents. It's wrong to block a woman from her ailing partner's hospital room. And it's wrong to charge someone taxes on their own home after the death of a life-long partner simply because he's gay.

Civil Unions Can Be An Important Step, But They Aren't Equal

Civil unions are not an equal alternative to marriage, though they can be an important step on the road to equality. The State of Vermont created the first legal “civil union” in 2000 that offers couples legal rights of marriage under state law. In 2005, Connecticut became the second state to allow gay couples to enter into civil unions. New Jersey established civil unions in 2006. Currently, a number of other state legislatures are also considering civil union legislation.

A few states have created a legal status called “domestic partnership.” The State of California allows gay couples to enter into an official domestic partnership, which now offers the rights of marriage under state law--much like civil unions. Maine's domestic partner registry offers a few basic protections: inheritance, funeral and burial decisions, explicit protection under domestic violence laws, and the ability to donate a deceased partner's organs.

Civil unions or domestic partnership provide legal protection to couples at the state level only. They are not equal to marriage because they do not extend the over 1,000 federal rights and responsibilities, they are not “portable” to other states, and they fail to offer the important social recognition that marriage offers.

• Federal benefits - According to a federal General Accounting Office report, marriage triggers 1,138 legal protections and responsibilities from the federal government, including the right to take leave from work to care for a family member, the right to sponsor a spouse for immigration purposes, and Social Security survivor benefits that can make the difference between old age in poverty and old age in security. Civil unions offer none of these critical legal protections.
• Portability - Marriages are respected state-to-state for all purposes, but in most cases other states will not recognizes civil unions. When a Vermont couple with a civil union goes on vacation in New Hampshire, they lose all their rights when they cross the state line.
• Social recognition - Marriage is a unique legal status conferred by and recognized by governments the world over. Yet it is more than the sum of its legal parts. It is also a cultural institution. The word itself is a fundamental protection, conveying clearly that two people love each other, are united and belong by each other's side. It represents the ultimate expression of love and commitment between two people. Everyone understands that. No other word has that power, and no other word can provide that protection.

Even if there were no substantive differences in the way the law treated marriages and civil unions, the fact that a civil union remains a separate status just for gay people represents real and powerful inequality.

The “separate but equal” argument was once used to try to justify racial segregation. A separate institution just for gay people is not a fair solution here either. Including lesbian and gay couples within existing marriage laws is the fairest and simplest thing to do.

On the one hand, there are real couples and children who are harmed by discrimination. On the other hand, there are abstract, hypothetical arguments about marriage needing to be “protected” from gay couples or children somehow being harmed by gay parents.

Thousands and thousands of same-sex couples have gotten legally married in Massachusetts, Canada, Spain, and an increasing number of other countries. And every day that they have been married, their families have been strengthened. The kids and the parents are better off, and their non-gay neighbors--both at home and around the country--are getting to see the reality of families helped and no one hurt. It's not a coincidence that in Massachusetts, public opinion polls consistently demonstrate a majority in favor of marriage equality. People have had a chance to understand it and see the value of it—and even get invited to some terrific weddings.

There is no rational reason to discriminate against gay couples and their families. When Wisconsinites get to know the gay families in their communities, they see the love, commitment, and responsibility that they see in their own families. They see that there is nothing to fear and much to gain by treating everyone equally.