...To Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

The Article wrote..

Today, Google has announced an ambitious effort to legalize same-sex marriage across the globe. The project, called “Legalize Love,” was annouced earlier today at an event in London focusing on LGBT issues in the workplace.
Dot429.com has the details:
The “Legalize Love” campaign officially launches in Poland and Singapore on Saturday, July 7th. Google intends to eventually expand the initiative to every country where the company has an office, and will focus on places with homophobic cultures, where anti-gay laws exist.
Google’s Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe outlined the initiative at a Global LGBT Workplace Summit in London earlier today. “We want our employees who are gay or lesbian or transgender to have the same experience outside the office as they do in the office. It is obviously a very ambitious piece of work.
Their strategy involves developing partnerships between companies and organizations to support grass-roots campaigns...

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/07/07....

I have been in a discussion on this topic with a Google employee that lives in California, for the last 12 hours. The FIRST thing he did was insult me, when I questioned the wisdom of this campaign. Of course, I fired back, and the ensuing "discussion" is rather interesting. Here is a bit of it...

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!!!! Wut! There are actually people on google+?

Hahahaha...well, there are SOME folks on G+...but I wouldn't call all of them "people".

If a business thinks they can grow by working to alter social norms, don't they always work to alter them in their favor?

Why is it so important for them to be "Married" - is it some mental validation for their life choice?

A spouse is the first person to give directions for medical care or to pull a plug. Inheritance. Joint ownership. Benefits with social security. Taxes. Health care insurance at work (I don't think every state or company has the domestic partner thing for live with but not legal married)

Cheaper to marry than get all they can with legal papers-lawyers ain't cheap!

I do think gays should be allowed to marry-then they can get screwed by divorce too! Maybe even spousal support!!!! Get married, lose half your stuff. And they want this anyway.

Be careful what you wish for

Quote:

A spouse is the first person to give directions for medical care or to pull a plug. Inheritance. Joint ownership. Benefits with social security. Taxes. Health care insurance at work (I don't think every state or company has the domestic partner thing for live with but not legal married)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they already have all this.

who has all that?

Bah..whatever. If they want to be as miserable as the rest of us married schlubs, so be it.

Heteros have been screwing up marriage for decades let gays have a crack at it.

Seriously...current contract law allows for all of these "benefits" outside of a traditional marriage.

The entire reason for "gay marriage" has nothing to do with their "rights", and everything to do with degrading the institution, and our society, and gradually brainwashing America into accepting things that were formerly completely unacceptable. By degrees, we are all being intentionally demoralized by The Left...with the "help" of the KGB.

You'll never believe this, but our friend John is still at it...DEMANDING I apologize to Adam, and he still hasn't addressed Adam's post at all. He's just flaming away, accusing, assigning blame, and calling me a bigot/racist and just about every other name his small mind can generate.

I am totally amused.

The concept of marriage as the miraculous union of 2--and only 2--people who together have the power to continue the existence of the species ad-infinitum is pretty damned profound and predates this nation by 100's of years.
It's too damned bad government got involved; it's even more too damned bad that gays now want to get involved.

Marriage is a religious thing. The US gov shouldn't have anything to do with it because it breaks the separation of church and state clause.

Some kind of civil union that people (no particular number or sex) can enter into and leave at will to cover the legal stuff (like end of life choices, etc.) is the only gov involvement there should be.

As I stated already, current contract law already provides for this. They don't want equal rights, they want special rights, and their true goal (whether the couple in question is aware of it or not) is not rights-based at all.

Quote:

Marriage is a religious thing.

Marriage started as a "politics" thing. Religion took over once religion basically took over everything, in the great centralization of power under <insert god here>.

back in those days you didn't live long enough to get divorced.

Hell, I wandered through some of the old Boston cemetaries this weekend - there were an amazing number of women buried to men who outlived them by 20 or 30 years. If childbirth didn't kill 'em, belladonna did, I guess.

Quote:

current contract law allows for all of these "benefits" outside of a traditional marriage.

One: are lawyers needed to do all those contracts? a marriage license is cheaper.

Two: is there a contract that allows survivor benefits to a non-spouse? Can a friend name me so I get his/her SS survivior benefits, like a spouse can? Or pension benefits? Or buy health insurance though work for them? In all 50 states?

(or whatever world wide benefits spouses get that a live in lover of either same or opposite gender does not)

I agree with Asi, get a civil union contract that is like marriage legally, so they have break up like hetros do. I want them to enjoy the same things I see so many hetros get-spousal support and half your assets to the one you no longer love. Fair is fair :)

What I do not understand is what a corporation like goog gets out of this.

1) You are free to contract with anybody or any entity, for any purpose, in all 50 States.
2a) Read #1
2b) Contracts are custom-designed by the contractors and the contractees, again for any purpose.
2c) You already know the answer to SS benefits, but you should also know that SS is totally broke, and you will likely outlive it anyway. There will be no benefits to direct.
2d) Ask your employer about health benefits. They MAY agree to it, but are under no obligation to, until Obamacare kicks in.

A "civil union contract" is a contract. It doesn't matter what you call it ("pet boytoy contract" "girl on girl action contract" "banana contract" etc.) the devil is in the details.

Google believes they'll get happier, more productive workers out of it. I think they'll suddenly have less employees in certain parts of the globe, once "the lifestyle" is made public.

Just my opinions, of course. I'm no legal expert.

Google+ Conversation Update...

This is what the conversation, with our hero John, has devolved into:

Obviously he learned his debate tactics in the back of a station wagon.

"did too"
"did not"
"did too"
"did not"
"Mom?"

Getting "married" covers all those contracts. Cheaper and easier. I'd agree to allowing "civil unions" but then all states would have to add them...

from a practical viewpoint its easier to for them to get married.

SS is not so broke today that a couple who have one spouse die, can't collect the spousal benefit if they are both old enough.

Yet, long term same sex relationships, can not. And there are folks who have been together for years, and one partner dies this year and there is no spousal benefit. All because of a lack of the right genitals?

And as you said, employers can refuse today but can they legally refuse to offer insurance to a legal spouse? In any state? They can refuse to pay for it and the employee has to pay but as far as I know employers do not have to pay the entire bill for an employee either.

Letting them get married is the simple way to let them have all the contractural stuff in a marriage that opposite sex couples get. The ups of it and the downs of it.

I agree in some parts of the world they really will get less, not more. I wonder if they figured it out and think the vast majority of the world going along with it would mean happier employees? What a mess if it means the loss over it, enough world wide, that the company is hurt overall.

What this means is that one of the Google big-wigs is gay, and his using his 8000 pound gorilla to effect social change. That's all. What's the big deal - they're a private company, they get to do this ****.

I'm ditching Google as fast as I can after the whole no-gun/weapon thing. shopping.google.com is how I shopped for ammo and guns. **** them.

Flaps....LOVE it...hahahaha..."learned to debate in the back of a stationwagon"...hahahahahaha

Sd...sure, you can pick it all apart, and cite certain cases where it won't work optimally, but you can do that with just about every law/statute. Seriously why would they want the government involved in their relationships? Why would anybody want Google involved?? It makes no sense. Sure, Google is free to expend the time, resources and funds to push this agenda, but to what end? They will never convince the Muslims not to KILL gays...and they're over 1/6 of the population of the Earth. This program is doomed to failure from the start.

Here is the last update from my little conversation with John and Adam. It seems that Adam has finally gotten around to blocking me, so I returned the favor (just prior to my last post) by removing him from my least-used Circle (obtained from a third-party) all that's here is my last two comments:

The State could boilerplate all of the contract law RJ describes into a simple "civil union contract", and step back from even labelling it "marriage".

The religious ceremony for marriage can place all the restrictions they want on the "blessed by God" part, but any two people can enter into the contract directly.

The only reason the State should care about this is to make sure there is legal standing for one person to operate on behalf of the other for Tax, Assets, Debts, Child rearing/Guardianship, medical decisions, etc. Basically legal and financial issues that could need the court to decide. Likewise, to break up such an agreement would require the court to review how division would take place.

Once the State defines it, there are follow-on things that I think are the real sticky points... like "spouse medical benefits" and other employer benefits. Employers would have to accept it just as they do now with "marriage".