What a hot-bed (pardon the pun) of an issue, “same sex marriage”.  Pretty much most people have some kind of opinion about it….whether their opinions are based in logic, feeling or a combination there in.  The point of this blog isn’t to get you to change your mind about whatever your opinion is regarding same sex marriage but rather to consider allowing for another perspective  to ease some of the taught lines about this complex subject…or at least one of the taught lines.  In other words, to be able to better “hear”.

Right now (puns abounding) one of the biggest knots that I hear and read over and over again from same sex couples is the desire to be able to be covered by their partner’s insurance, 401k, work related benefits that hetero couples enjoy.  It seems that whether you agree with same sex marriage or not, a reason-minded person would be open to discussion about people (however they come into the world) who are in a committed, responsible partnership (married or not and by the way, how do we handle hetero-long term partnerships?) living under the same roof should be able to be signed up as a beneficiary of their partner regardless of sexual orientation or if they are married or not.  Seems to me that this issue is really about a contract agreement vs. marriage, or church and state.  Doesn’t the constitution say something about the separation of church and state? So couldn’t we come up with a contract for same sex (or hetero UN-married partners) that would allow for them to be covered by their partner and leave all the inflammatory discussions of marriage out of the equation and up to discussions in churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.

Please excuse my ignorance for not being an attorney nor reading the bills or legislation that is out there regarding this specific topic but it seems like what is causing the biggest RIFF IN LISTENING TO WHAT COULD BE POSSIBLE is the whole marriage issue.  Fine. We could discuss that topic later on down the road when most of humanity has grown up and matured.  For today, where we can focus our attention is in the legalities of fairness and what constitute our freedom of choice in terms of who we appoint as a beneficiary and what determines how they are a beneficiary.  Seems to me we could create a new law that would cover situations like this that does not require people to be married.

Of course, I understand that figuring out a way to make this work so that we can help householders to feel more secure in this world will sweep a whole bunch more dust bunnies from out under the rug such as who REALLY is behind calling the shots on healthcare and costs (hopefully there are people out there in the throws of inventing a really robust vacuum).

To allow for the ability of a different perspective to occur in us, we must be willing to step out of our tendency to “spin” or to get caught up in the spin.  We must be able to step back and lay out the facts of what is going on so that we can clearly know what are the real issues at hand here.  How is the issue of providing insurance and benefits for our partners and focusing in on the belief horror house of same sex marriage any different than those Episcopal and Protestant renegades sailing across the pond for the freedom of religion?

What freedom is really at stake here?