"John Theune" wrote in message
news:Uol6h.891$672.696@trndny01...
Actually that can be entirely avoided by simply making your partner your
medical power of attorney. Yes, it more work then for married
heterosexual couples who only need to show ID to prove they should be
there but it's doable.

Some issues can be solved through legal contracts. Some cannot.

For example, none of the federal tax benefits that come from being a married
couple are applicable to same-sex couples. No amount of legal contract
writing can change this.

Jose's example was simply that...an example. It in no way implies that if
you solve that one problem (and as he points out, doing that is not
assured), you have addressed the general problem of government-sanctioned
and government-implemented discrimination against same-sex couples.

By the way, the same problem occurs for hetro couple who are not married.
They lose visitation privileges as well.

But heterosexual couples have a viable legal option to solve the problem.
They can get married. With a single act and a single piece of paper, they
are granted a huge swath of legal rights. Rights that can only partially,
and imperfectly, be emulated through thousands, if not tens of thousands, of
dollars worth of legal action.

Pete