State Representative shows how
the Pennsylvania Marriage
Protection Amendment will
victimize unmarried couples
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Why the Pennsylvania Constitution needs a Marriage Protection Amendment
By State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican from Butler PA
In this advocacy piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mr. Metcalfe defends his role in promoting the following proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution.
“Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this commonwealth, and neither the commonwealth nor any of its political subdivisions shall create or recognize a legal status identical or substantially equivalent to that of marriage for unmarried individuals.”
The first clause just states the status quo and what most people instinctively believe: “Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this commonwealth.”
It is the second clause that raises questions about the intent of this amendment: “neither the commonwealth nor any of its political subdivisions shall create or recognize a legal status identical or substantially equivalent to that of marriage for unmarried individuals.”
Mr. Metcalfe finally gets around to explaining the practical implications of this second clause when he states:
“House Bill 2381 does not take away any rights currently enjoyed by unmarried opposite-sex or same-sex couples, nor does it provide them with any new rights. These couples will still be able to pursue any legal protection currently available to them, such as a living will, a power of attorney, a last will and testament or a health care proxy for medical decisions. It also does not prohibit employers from being able to extend health-care benefits to cohabiting partners.” (emphasis added)
This makes it perfectly clear that the intent of this amendment is to make it difficult if not impossible for unmarried couples to obtain rights similar to those that married people enjoy. To seek “a legal status identical or substantially equivalent to that of marriage” is entirely about being recognized as a social unit for the basis of being granted socially recognized rights and privileges, as well as being expected to undertake certain responsibilities.
It does not take more than five minutes on the internet to discover that hundreds of rights have accrued to marriage over the years. In 1997 the Government Accounting Office made a complete list of 1,049 federal rights. In 2004, this list was updated to yield “a total of 1,138 provisions in which marital status is a factor in determining benefits, rights, and privileges.” Not every benefit on this list applies to every married couple, and most would, strictly speaking, not be considered “benefits,” but Federal law nevertheless does bestow a great number of important benefits to marriage.
By and large these rights accrue whenever qualified people marry and at any age, even when elderly, and whether or not they intend to have children. There is no defensible reason why being married in every case benefits society in a way that justifies these carte blanche rights for the married AND does NOT justify them for those in ANY OTHER CATEGORY of permanently committed couple. But this proposed amendment excludes any other category of committed couple from receiving these benefits.
A more helpful summary of key rights at issue is presented from a gay perspective at:
http://scribbling.net/1049-federal-rights-depend-on-marital-status
Check out this link for the original version. The annotated list that follows is reworded to generalize the rights issues as much as possible to all unmarried couples, because common law marriages have already been abolished in Pennsylvania. Here are the especially difficult rights issues identified on this website–
Hospital Visitation Rights
Married couples have the automatic right to visit each other in the hospital and make medical decisions. Same sex couples can be denied the right to visit a sick or injured partner in the hospital. They may have obtained some rights where they live, but when traveling to other areas they might not have those rights.
Health insurance
Many public and private employers provide medical coverage to the legal spouses of their employees, but most employers do not provide coverage to the same-sex partners of their employees. LGBT employees who do receive health coverage for their same-sex partners must pay federal income taxes on the value of the insurance. Same-sex couples cannot even buy a family health insurance policy on the open market.
Spousal Privilege
Spousal privilege, granted to married couples, is the right of a person to refuse to testify against their spouse in the court of law. That means if one’s unmarried partner was sued, they could be called on to testify against them. And every email, phone call, letter, IM and conversation between them would not be protected by spousal privilege, and could be entered into evidence.
Inheritance rights
When a married person’s spouse dies, the survivor can automatically inherit a substantial share from the deceased spouse’s estate regardless of whether a will exists. Without marriage, a same-sex partner has no automatic right to inherit. Only writing a will can guarantee that one’s partner will inherit from the other if one dies. How many people do you know under thirty who have a will?
Family leave
Married workers in many workplaces are legally entitled to unpaid leave from their jobs to care for an ill spouse but workers with same-sex partners have no right to family leave.
Pensions
After the death of a worker, most pension plans pay survivor benefits only to a legal spouse of the participant - so surviving same-sex partners get no pension support for their surviving partners. Any pension dies with the worker.
Nursing homes
Married couples have a legal right to live together in nursing homes. An unmarried and elderly same-sex couple does not have the right to spend their final days together in a nursing home.
Home protection
Laws protect married seniors from being forced to sell their homes to pay high nursing-home bills; seniors in same-sex relationships have no such protection. A non-married partner can be forced to sell his or her own house to repay a state lien for nursing home care. A non-married partner who lives in the home but does not own it could even be forced from the home to pay nursing home costs.
Retirement savings
While a married person can roll over a deceased spouse’s 401(k) or IRA funds into an IRA without paying taxes, surviving partners in same-sex relationships must withdraw the entire amount, pay income taxes on it and also lose the tax deferral benefits of these accounts.
Taxes
Estate taxes. A spouse who dies may leave an unlimited amount of property to the surviving spouse without paying any state or federal estate taxes. Without the benefit of marriage, any amount of property over the federal or state exclusion amounts is taxed.
Income tax. Every year, unmarried couples must file taxes separately, as “single” people, ineligible for the tax benefits afforded to married couples.
Social Security benefits
Married people receive Social Security payments upon the death of a spouse. Despite paying payroll taxes, surviving partners in same-sex relationships receive no Social Security survivor benefits resulting in an average annual income loss of $5,528 upon the death of a partner.
Now I am a Bible-believing Christian, and I believe that God intended marriage to be between a man and a woman, so I am in sympathy with the part of the proposed “Marriage Protection” amendment that states, “Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage.” The fatal flaw at this point, though, is that it does not say that marriage is a lifelong relationship. If it said that, then it would truly reflect the Christian ethic that shaped so much of our cultural tradition; but you would also get very little support for the amendment because divorce is so widespread in our society.
But it is important to recognize that only this tradition of understanding marriage as a lifelong commitment can explain the wholesale assignment of so many rights to the marriage status. Furthermore, the ability to control reproduction was not always as effective, which meant marriage usually resulted in reproduction. So the way things are now, many of the rights assigned to the marriage state do not make sense to be exclusively preserved for that relationship. Traditional marriage as an institution will not fall apart because committed unmarried couples are granted at least some of the rights listed above, or because gay couples are allowed to marry or enter into legally recognized civil unions.
Recognizing nontraditional unions would create options, however, and that would demand that parents and their associates actively exercise their responsibility to nurture and educate their children to make responsible choices. The great fear is that as society adapts such a foundational principle, we will recreate a mandatory pluralism where Christians and others are not completely free to practice their beliefs. Rather than risking their advantaged position, those supporting only the traditional concept of marriage would rather deny any consideration to others than to lose their privileges. In submitting to fear of what social change might bring, rather than seeking justice for those adversly affected by the traditional system, the advocates of the proposed amendment are surrendering all claims to moral authority.
Let’s face it. This proposed amendment does not “protect” marriage. Without it marriage will continue to exist. All it does is ensure that the unmarried can never obtain the rights and benefits that have accrued to marriage over the years–and many of these benefits are now completely unrelated to the functional benefit of marriage to society. This amendment is designed to prevent any other kind of sexual union from being socially recognized, and it is sacrificing the well being of everyone who does not live up to traditional standards to achieve that purpose.
It appears that a good number of religious but fearful people are promoting this amendment. Even the much-maligned Puritans when they first came to America kept marriage in the secular sphere in their unsuccessful efforts to make a distinction between church and state. Although they did not always do things right, they gave birth to a national system in keeping with the Puritan’s objectives – where churches would convince people of what they should do, and the state would operate independently from the church and by the will of the people, FOR THE GOOD OF THE TOTAL COMMUNITY. One does have to admit that the Puritans would be shocked to see what has become of their offspring; but then again God gave birth to an even greater nightmare when he created Adam and Eve.
Just as the Bible demonstrates how God accommodated to the practice of divorce which it says God hated, so we must now wisely and moderately accommodate to other human choices that consistently reject God’s will as presented in the biblical record. One part of the community should not impose its standard on the rest of the community when so many people are not actually following it. If we do not follow the divine example of accommodation, but instead impose an absolute standard to address the problem of unmarried cohabitation (both same sex and opposite sex) we will create a lot more problems than by letting solutions evolve through the more uncomfortable give-and-take of the democratic process.
Marriage happens to be one of the oldest recognized social arrangements, which has now become a legal entity. We recognize many other legal entities for various purposes, and we call them corporations. Commonly recognized and accepted practice becomes the basis for legal acceptance and legal rights, which is the basis for the legal recognition of common law marriage. Just as there are different levels of corporate registration and identity, so also there could be different levels of marriage, if we so chose. As the history of marriage shows, in which common law marriage predominated in the European tradition, the formalization of social practices into legal codes is related to correspondingly developing political structures. Governments make laws governing marriage, and many if not most of them have been made in the modern period with the rise of the nation-state. We should be free to develop laws that best serve the common good.
There is no good reason why we should not allow for same-sex couples who want to commit themselves to each other in a partnership to obtain the rights granted to those who have made the commitment of marriage. One can even imagine non-sexual partnerships as a permissible arrangement if there was a demand for them. The only real debate is whether we call these legal entities “marriages.” Unfortunately, this proposed amendment goes way beyond the semantic issue and makes victims out of those who fail to conform to the one legally sanctioned option currently available. Advocates of the amendment are attempting to accomplish with the sword what they could not accomplish with the word. They are seeking neither love nor justice, but “protection.” The many Christians among them have abandoned a Christian approach to government and surrendered to fear.
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