Yes, you can

Rights and benefits of marriage under law in the United States:

• Right to many of ex- or late spouse’s benefits, including:
  • Social Security pension
  • veteran’s pensions, indemnity compensation for service-connected deaths, medical care, and nursing home care, right to burial in veterans‘ cemeteries, educational assistance, and housing
  • survivor benefits for federal employees
  • survivor benefits for spouses of longshoremen, harbor workers, railroad workers
  • additional benefits to spouses of coal miners who die of black lung disease
  • $100,000 to spouse of any public safety officer killed in the line of duty
  • continuation of employer-sponsored health benefits
  • renewal and termination rights to spouse’s copyrights on death of spouse
  • continued water rights of spouse in some circumstances
  • payment of wages and workers compensation benefits after worker death
  • making, revoking, and objecting to post-mortem anatomical gifts

Yes, you can.

• Right to benefits while married:
  • employment assistance and transitional services for spouses of members being separated from military service; continued commissary privileges
  • per diem payment to spouse for federal civil service employees when relocating
  • Indian Health Service care for spouses of Native Americans (in some circumstances)
  • sponsor husband/wife for immigration benefits

Yes, you can. 

• Larger benefits under some programs if married, including:
  • veteran’s disability
  • Supplemental Security Income
  • disability payments for federal employees
  • medicaid
  • property tax exemption for homes of totally disabled veterans
  • income tax deductions, credits, rates exemption, and estimates

Yes, you can. 

• Joint and family-related rights:
  • joint filing of bankruptcy permitted
  • joint parenting rights, such as access to children’s school records
  • family visitation rights for the spouse and non-biological children, such as to visit a spouse in a hospital or prison
  • next-of-kin status for emergency medical decisions or filing wrongful death claims
  • custodial rights to children, shared property, child support, and alimony after divorce
  • domestic violence intervention
  • access to “family only” services, such as reduced rate memberships to clubs & organizations or residency in certain neighborhoods

Yes, you can. 

• Preferential hiring for spouses of veterans in government jobs

Yes, you can. 

• Tax-free transfer of property between spouses (including on death) and exemption from “due-on-sale” clauses.

Yes, you can. 

• Special consideration to spouses of citizens and resident aliens

Yes, you can. 

• Spouse’s flower sales count towards meeting the eligibility for Fresh Cut Flowers and Fresh Cut Greens Promotion and Information Act

Yes, you can.  

• Threats against spouses of various federal employees is a federal crime

Yes, you can. 

• Right to continue living on land purchased from spouse by National Park Service when easement granted to spouse

Yes, you can.  

• Court notice of probate proceedings

Yes, you can.  

• Domestic violence protection orders

Yes, you can.   

• Existing homestead lease continuation of rights

Yes, you can.   

• Regulation of condominium sales to owner-occupants exemption

Yes, you can.   

• Funeral and bereavement leave

Yes, you can.   

• Joint adoption and foster care

Yes, you can.   

• Joint tax filing

Yes, you can.  

• Insurance licenses, coverage, eligibility, and benefits organization of mutual benefits society

Yes, you can.   

• Legal status with stepchildren

Yes, you can.   

• Making spousal medical decisions

Yes, you can.   

• Spousal non-resident tuition deferential waiver

Yes, you can.  

• Permission to make funeral arrangements for a deceased spouse, including burial or cremation

Yes, you can.  

• Right of survivorship of custodial trust 

Yes, you can.  

• Right to change surname upon marriage

Yes, you can.  

• Right to enter into prenuptial agreement

Yes, you can.  

• Right to inheritance of property

Yes, you can.   

• Spousal privilege in court cases (the marital confidences privilege and the spousal testimonial privilege)

Yes, you can. 

 

On this incredible, historic day, the first African American has been elected to be the President of the United States. A day for joy, for giving thanks, for seeing the future of all African-American children open up, bright and high as the sky.

It is also the day in which the exclusion into the basic and fundamental relationship of marriage and family has been codified into law, in the state constitution of California through the passage of Proposition 8.

So all of you good Americans out there, get out there and celebrate.

Yes, you can. 

For me, for mine, we are so excluded from this basic level of community, from inclusion in the American process, we are crying and angry on this most historic day, when we should all be celebrating, as one people, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

For some. For us, we have once again been denied full citizenship under the law. As a people, we are not even relegated to the back of the bus. We are not even on the bus. We are under the bus. Once again.

You believe your relationship is more legitimate than mine? Really? More normal? More moral?

Even in the absence of all of these special privileges that are granted to you heterosexual people of all colors and creeds, the one right I still have, at least for now, is the right to disagree with you and your vitriol, your judgment, your pettiness of spirit.

Yes, I can.