Implications

If the legalization of same-sex marriage remains an issue homosexuals in America will continue to be deprived of many rights. Every year each partner in a homosexual relationship will be deprived of one thousand and forty nine state and federal benefits. If a couple chooses to divorce or separate, a same-sex couple will continue to have to give up all rights as parents and receive no financial support or alimony. In the case of death, surviving same-sex partners do not receive Social Security or other government benefits. Each year surviving partners will continue to loose and estimated $5,528 of Social Security benefits. Same-sex couples will continue to be unable to make emergency medical decisions for their partner. If a couple chooses to have a child through artificial insemination, only the birth parent will continue to be recognized as the legal guardian. If a same-sex couple chooses to adopt and if something happens to the custodial parent, the remaining parent, even if they have been raising the child for years, will continue to be seen as a stranger in the eyes of the law. Also, when same-sex couples adopt children, gay couple households will continue to have no legal status should something happen to the parents, including death or serious illness. For example, neither the parent or child has visitation rights if the parents separate, the child cannot claim inheritances or other household assets in case of death, if one parent dies, the second parent has no legal right to take custody or care for the child, a parent without legal right to a child cannot legally register him/her for school, parents cannot put children on some health insurance plans, parents cannot make medical decisions for the child, the child has no claim to the social security or other insurance benefits of the parent, and gay couple parents without adoption rights will continue to not benefit from the generous tax deductions granted to heterosexual parents.