HUNDREDS OF GAY COUPLES WED IN CALIFORNIA

As a Massachusetts resident, I have lived in this state since it became legal for gay couples to marry. And, marry they have...happily, lovingly, quietly (with the exception of the media voyeurs) and with great relief to be able to live like other committed couples with the same rights other married couples have enjoyed for some time. It has not always been a world of fairness or equality. It still isn't, as women are mere chattel in much of the Middle East and elsewhere. Couples have now gained hospital visitation rights, the possibility of getting health insurance on a family plan, the right to file joint tax returns to the IRS, the right to transfer property. They can automatically inherit shared assets and make medical decisions for their spouse. Amazing, since so many have been denied these rights for so long because some in society have blindly decided they alone know what God wants!

There has been no observation of gay couples (being given the right to marry) having any significant impact on heterosexual marriage. Same sex marriage in Massachusetts four years later: While there have been over 10,000 couples married here, there have been 48 divorces recorded. This may be because many of those married quickly have been waiting for a very long time and have proven the stability of their relationship. Statistics on divorce for everyone are hard to get for our current time. However, since most schoolrooms show more than half the children in class have had their parents divorce, it is striking.

Many of the couples married in the first rush of marriages in California seem to be similar to those of Massachusetts. Many, such as the 83 and 87 year old Lesbian couple in CA today who married after well more than fifty years together. These relationships have been tried and retired by every self-appointed judge around them. I see equal love and consideration shown in my gay friends unions as I do (if not more, actually) in my heterosexual acquaintances or my own heterosexual marriages.

Not all blondes, dark-eyed people, women or men, may have similarities beyond those elements of common description. They can not, as a group, claim to be without significant differences from one another. Being a heterosexual, my view of life is definitely through a different lens than were I gay. While I have not had to fight the prejudices, closed minds, and ridicule from anti-gay figures, I am pleased that our country is getting fairer by the day. It should make us all happy to see people who are hurting no one being, finally, happy about being able to care for one another openly and not be pushed apart by relatives on death and told the deceased wishes will be ignored. They greedily take an inheritance not earned and care not about the grieving partner, pleased only with their material inheritance...those who often wanted nothing to do with this relative whom society (and they) shunned for so long. They are ignorant of their 'theft', though legal, but are not ashamed of their cruel actions. Two states out of fifty is a start!