Some times it's homeless shelter-like, Amsterdam and Edinburgh were like that, but those have been the most enjoyable. The others I've been in are 4 to a room.
I only lock up my important documents and electronics. My clothes and **** I leave out
Some times it's homeless shelter-like, Amsterdam and Edinburgh were like that, but those have been the most enjoyable. The others I've been in are 4 to a room.
I only lock up my important documents and electronics. My clothes and **** I leave out
The state of marriage is the hot-button issue of the current day. Yes, we're being monitored and profiled by our own government, are in a spiraling deficit of a number nobody can count to incurred within the last decade, are retiring Constitutional amendments one by one, spend about 10 times more on war than education and live under a regime increasingly controlled by the interests of large corporations, but sure, let's talk about this instead.
In case you don't have the news, same-sex marriages have been legalized on a federal level this week with the strikedown of the Defense of Marriage Act. Many people think this makes things equal for all citizens, but I disagree. After some thought about the matter, I believe it only highlights the societal inequalities still present with subsets of the population who aren't quite as flamboyantly vocal. See, when you think about marriage, at least in a legal sense, you think about the benefits. The visitation rights. The legal protections. The closest-relative badge. The old green-card trick. All of which any two adults who have made a decision to permanently care about each other should have available to them.
That's only fair.
Then we come to the tax break married couples get, which was the big sticking point in the entire affair. (Don't let anybody convince you differently, when is anything not largely about the money?) Popular opinion suggested that any permanent voluntary ties between two people deserved the same financial benefit...which I suppose is true in theory, but is that not discriminatory against singles of any orientation?
Functionally, Shannon and I have an identical relationship to a married couple (you tell me the difference if we're both wearing gloves). We share expenses and everything, and yet receive no official benefits for not killing each other whilst under the same roof.
We're not officially wedded, but she'll never testify against me in court (if she knows what's good for her). Why would she "have" to? We also are very fond of each other most of the time, and one would like to be informed if something unexpected happened to the other. (*knock, knock*) Under the current system, if I end up mauled in a city bear attack, Shannon won't know about it until I'm able to post on umf about it and she might not be able to visit me when she does find out. In what way is that fair?
We have a child together, and that's easily more of a mutual commitment than marriage. (You can get a divorce, but you can't just shove a kid back where it came from. You tell me what's more binding.) Why don't we enjoy all the benefits of the married couple everyone insists on calling us?
Let's even put aside relationships. In a time where many people are choosing not to enter a lifetime commitment with another human being for very good reason, (hey, any time half the people who swear in front of everyone they care about that they're going to die loving someone are lying, something is askew) is giving people fiscal incentive to continue to degrade the idea with half-commitments and whole shenanigans really a good idea?
A tax break and free property transfers should not be a valid reason for a marriage...that's more like a merger. When relationships become business decisions, you get a 50% divorce rate. It's hard for me to look at and not see the core issues at hand.
When you think about it, the entire argument is focused in the wrong direction. It is marriage itself that is inordinately advantageous to any two parties who enter it. The fact is, the government really doesn't have any business in the adult union concept at all. At most, the construct currently known as marriage should be little more than a social status, a way to legally (and forever) combine yourself with the person you love for the official record, for posterity, for access reasons and for emergency purposes.
Every committed couple (or...hey, few) has a right to that.
However, when you take the preferential perks out of the marriage equation, what are you left with? A Judeochristian-inspired agreement that is traditionally between one man and one woman. Referring to any other arrangement as such is simply an error of nomenclature. That said, why are the non-financial considerations tied so closely to a historically religious arrangement in a purportedly secular government in the first place?
Therefore, I propose that an alternate term be created to describe all permanent consensual adult relationships--straight, wavy, poly, whatever else--and have them stand on the same leveled legal ground as the rest of us. Let people come up with their own colloquialisms. Sounds fair to me.
Equal rights shouldn't require a sign-up fee of two months salary and the cost of a ring exchange ceremony. If a man and a woman want to be married, that's beautiful. If the couple is more homogenous, that's fine too. If three or four people want to spend a lifetime trying to figure out how to share a big bundle of love. If you want to spend your days loving yourself, you should get the same benefits as any other person. Hell, if you want to spend the rest of your life banging your cousin, that's your right too (and already legal in some states). It's nobody's business...and should be nobody's business decision either.
It's okay to love whoever you want and truly extraordinary to love them for the rest of your life. Saying so just shouldn't have many more benefits than being able to say it officially. That's equality.
Don't fall for that "grandchildren" talk...you're gonna be the one up with that kid at all hours of the night and chasing it around for a decade, not them. I used to tell my mom if she wanted to play with a kid she could volunteer at a day care.
Please, please, please don't do that until you're ready to sacrifice damn near anything in your life on a moment's notice and you're with the right woman to be the other party.
Don't fall for that "grandchildren" talk...you're gonna be the one up with that kid at all hours of the night and chasing it around for a decade, not them. I used to tell my mom if she wanted to play with a kid she could volunteer at a day care.
Please, please, please don't do that until you're ready to sacrifice damn near anything in your life on a moment's notice and you're with the right woman to be the other party.
I never said I'm caving in to that . I think I made it out to be more dramatic than it is. My mom isn't constantly pressuring me. It's just that when she mentions it (she's the only one out of all of her sisters that doesn't have a grandchild) it gets to me. But other than that, it's not really a pressing issue between us. She knows how I feel about it and respects my time frame. When other family members hit me with the children talk, all they get is .
Don't fall for that "grandchildren" talk...you're gonna be the one up with that kid at all hours of the night and chasing it around for a decade, not them. I used to tell my mom if she wanted to play with a kid she could volunteer at a day care.
Please, please, please don't do that until you're ready to sacrifice damn near anything in your life on a moment's notice and you're with the right woman to be the other party.
Some times it's homeless shelter-like, Amsterdam and Edinburgh were like that, but those have been the most enjoyable. The others I've been in are 4 to a room.
I only lock up my important documents and electronics. My clothes and **** I leave out
. It's kinda ill when you can call your mom and jokingly call her dog breath
should I just let him be?
.
