Gay Marriage Approved by NY Senate

nytimes.com

36 points·meghan··8 comments

As far as the state should be concerned, marriage is nothing but a legal contract, and the state has no business telling anyone who they can or can't enter into a contract with. You've done the free world a solid, New York.

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Huzzah. About time. Now can we stop pretending that the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution doesn't apply to marriage?

YES. And once we're done with that, can we admit that "marriage" is simply a contract between interested parties and get out of it completely?

By "get out of it" I mean treat it as any other legal contract. There is no need for special treatment.

Which leads to interesting things - limited term contracts with right of first refusal :)

If only that were true. Marriage is a state-recognized term with state-recognized benefits. It's a contract that the state monitors.

What are you implying? Are you implying that the state get out of the business altogether? My mother loses her special rights when my father is in the hospital? They lose their tax incentives?

I have no problem with saying that the state will only recognize civil unions (and the legal and tax benefits that come with it) and can leave the term "marriage" to the churches... but "get out of it completely" doesn't have a defined meaning at this point in time.

I'm proud to be a new yorker today. Not that I'm not other days, but I can be finally proud of my senate.

about time. still a great fear for equality in the US

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