In all this discussion of gay rights there is a missing discussion of human rights. I will illustrate it by an example. Suppose we had two individuals of the same sex who lived together, worked together as partners on a farm or in another business, but had no sexual relationship. They were merely life long partners in every sense except sexual. Such mutual partnerships have existed between people of the same sex since time began. They exist in monasteries, on family farms and in the business world.
Now let's take our discussion a little further. Suppose that one of our two individuals was a veteran. Upon that person's death, who receives survivor benefits? In this case, nobody, because the individual has no spouse. This is the injustice that gays are fighting for. Don't get me wrong, I am not pro the gay lifestyle, but I am pro mutual respect and human rights. What people do in the privacy of their own homes does not interest me. I wish that they would keep it private and not continually parade their sexual choices publicly.
I imagine that many gays are more interested in the same rights as married people and don't give a fig what we call their relationship. I'm sure that the two people in my story would also not be interested in their mutual bond being called marriage or civil union or anything at all, but would be interested in the justice issue of survivor benefits and other similar benefits only available today between partners in a heterosexual monogamous marriage.
The law currently protects married people in a way that it does not protect others. If we limit reform of this issue to gays, then we ignore the rights of other human beings. In the eyes of God, we have all sinned, gay, straight and celibate. It ought to be a fundamental human right to choose who receives benefits as a result of the committed human relationships that we choose and just leave private sexual choices out of it.
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