>>>Marriage in the civil sense is a state established contract. There is nothing "family" about it. It is a legal status. The state must have a compelling reason to deny this to a class of individuals and I don't think that case can be made without resorting to arguments that are based on religion and tribal custom.
>>>
>>>This is not about trying to join a private club, this is about being denied the use of a state created contract while still being required to pay for the state.
>>>
>>>All issues of "marriage" that involve church or tribe are outside of this discussion. I am talking strictly about being "married" with the automatic provisions for taxation, inheritance, common-property, medical decisions etc. This is not the request for a special privilege but questioning the state's right to deny some citizens something available to other citizens without a compelling reason.
>>
>>And a key point is that there are privileges conferred with marriage that are not available even through private contract. One obvious group are the various federal tax differences, including the exemption in inheritance (3 million now, I think?).
>>
>>Tamar
>
>That's a bunch of questionable points. As far as I understand you strongly support repeal of inheritance exemption, so using it as an argument is not very fair. Also, this exemption is available to any heir, i.e. spouse, children or any other person (e.g. gay partner) specified in the will. Can you come up with better example of 'tax privileges' available exclusively for married folk?

First, I actually think the inheritance exemption should be fairly large, large enough to eliminate the argument that family farms and small businesses would have to be sold due to estate tax. I also think the exemption should be indexed to inflation.

I just checked and as I thought, marital property is totally exempt. IOW, anything a married couple owns jointly is excluded from the tax. Here's a quote from the IRS site:

All property that is included in the gross estate and passes to the surviving spouse is eligible for the marital deduction. The property must pass "outright."

So clearly, this is one way in which the inability of gay couples to marry disadvantages them and a contract would not make a difference.

Tamar