Here we go - let's kill all the gays - they are what is wrong with the failing institutionof marriage even though they WANT to be married.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109150,00.html
This is why I say get the govt. out of marriage altoghether. If you want to marry, let your church marry you. The govt. should not be supporting one form of marriage (gay, staight, polygamist, whatever) over another.
That they did not even give benefits to the same-sex partners of state employees as well as different sex partners of state employees is also horrible. It does, however, raise an intersting issue in that no Constitutional Equal Protection calim can be raised - in other words no unmarried group is being protected over another. It could be argued that protecting the rights on spouses of married people as opposed partners of all unmarried people is a violation of the Constitution's Equal Protection clause. But, the caselaw in this area indicates that argument will fail because the state clearly has an historically compelling interest in protecting marriage and unmarried people as a whole are not a historically discrimminated against and congenital class of people (termed "suspect class" ) like black people are. So, the law will stick on Equal Protection grounds. Interstingly, there may be a claim to overturn it via Ohio's Constitution a la the Mass. Ct. Also, the US Sup. Ct. could in theory apply the "liberty interest" rationale used in the recent case barring laws outlawing homosexual sodomy. However, that appears a remote chance.
Sad - very sad that so much hate exists in the world. For those who think it is not hate, I submit they should walk in the shoes of people who lose their houses, etc. because when their partners (regardless of sex) died, they had to pay Uncle Sam like 70% of the value at that time of their home or they were denied access to their loved ones in the hospital or could not make any decisions for them while they were sick.
Note - Georgia introduced a similar bill today -
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/met.../22leggay.html
I think that although it smacks of the "sep. but equal" used in the civil rights cases, the heterosexual institution of marriage should not have been attacked and instead the politically correct "civil union" should have been sought. Hopefully, that is still a viable option.