Lack of reproduction does not mean lack of heirs

[jaimehlers]

This is the text of a letter to the editor which attempts to decry gay marriage as being unnecessary because "homosexuals can't reproduce", therefore they don't have legal heirs and thus don't need to marry in order to pass their wealth on to the next generation.

I’m amazed how an interview in a religious publication can stir anger and hate from its unintended readers. Dan Cathy, the CEO of Chik-fil-A, answered a few simple questions posed by a reporter in an interview for the Baptist Press.

Alarmist liberal journalists read too much into what he said, alerted activists in the GLBT community and the expected emoting began with calls of “boycott.”

The issue of gay marriage has been kept alive this year, beginning with the 9th Circuit’s overturn of California’s Proposition 8 to President Obama’s campaigning that it should be a right. The definition of marriage and the real purpose of marriage has been lost in this debate. Marriage is not a right. If it requires a license, it’s not a right. It’s a permission granted from the state. As such, there are qualifiers in order to obtain this license to marry.

In Oklahoma, neither intended marital partner can be closely related, be under legal age or be of the same gender. And they can’t be animals or inanimate objects.

The real purpose of marriage is to ease the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next. That’s the unvarnished, unromantic legalistic purpose of marriage.

That’s why children born out of wedlock are considered “illegitimate,” legally unqualified to inherit property.

Those marital qualifiers were set up to enable the birth of offspring for inheritance purposes as well as ensure they could be physically and mentally fit to enjoy its use. Children are the natural expectation of any marital union. It’s disheartening for most couples when they can’t have any. Nevertheless, marital law exists for the ultimate transfer of accumulated wealth to the next generation. Shocker: Homosexual couples don’t reproduce.

Liberals once decried matrimony as legalized rape. Now, they want homosexuals to have marital “rights.” It’s all a smarmy ruse.

I’m no homophobe, but I tire of their obvious manipulative ploy to play the victim. I don’t deny that there are many loving homosexual couples, but it appears that gay marriages are really about having all the fun and games and no business.

And here's my response in a comment on the letter.  Frankly, this guy's attitude ("I'm no homophobe", yet he's clearly biased and not thinking clearly) annoyed me more than a bit.

Your letter is incorrect and misleading in several particulars.

Humans do not and have never needed marriage in order to have children.  Furthermore, it has always been possible to easily establish maternity.  What is much more difficult is to establish paternity.  There is not and never has been any barrier, legal or otherwise, to "transferring wealth" to someone not related by blood.

Certainly, homosexual couples do not reproduce naturally.  But that has nothing to do with your point about the transfer of wealth to legal heirs, since there is no reason that a homosexual couple could not adopt a child and declare it their legal heir.  Otherwise heterosexual couples where sterility was an issue would be up a creek.

There have been numerous times and places where children born out of wedlock, even children not born to one or even both parents, have become legal heirs and stood to inherit.

Finally, regarding your point about the attitude of liberals towards marriage, the simple fact here is that several decades ago, it was legally impossible for a husband to rape his wife.  If he wanted sex, she was obligated to oblige, and if she didn't want to, her husband could use coercive force to 'convince' her.

That is why liberals once considered marriage to be legalized rape.  The offending law has since been changed, at least in this country, so that rape within the bonds of matrimony is punishable by law.

As to your last comment, do you think that homosexuals do not earn money and property that will ultimately need to be transferred to their legal heirs?  Since homosexuals do indeed do this, the necessity of legal heirs is patently obvious, even if those heirs are not genetically related to them.  Perhaps you should spend some time considering these facts you seem to have missed before you speak so authoritatively on this subject again.

[wright]

Your response to this "amazed" bigot is more civil than they deserve, but given the forum it originally appeared in, that's understandable.

What's sad is that this person clearly doesn't see themselves as prejudiced; they lack both perspective in general and empathy with the GLBT community in particular. That you can so quickly and thoroughly eviscerate their position with a few facts should be a wake-up call for them... but I doubt it.

[Quesi]

Thank you for your response.   I cannot begin to state how disturbed I am by the content of this letter. 

First of all, inheritance is the number 1 issue?  Inheritance?  Wow.  I think that this speaks volumes about the values that the write embraces.

And what a patriarchal point of view.  Seriously.  If I gave birth to a child out of wedlock, that child would automatically inherit my wealth.  Ohhhh.....  He is a talking about a man who fathers a child outside of marriage.  Check. 

But gay and lesbian families can and do adopt children, as jaimehlers pointed out in his response.  And those children are ensured the same inheritance rights as any child in the family.  In the absence of a will, the law treats adoptive children exactly the same way as it treats non-adopted children in terms of inheritance. 

Adoptive Parents and Adopted Children

The adopted child is treated by law as if he or she had been born to the adopting parents upon the entry of the final adoption decree. The adopted child, therefore, gains the right to inherit from the adoptive parents and adoptive parents' relatives. Adoptive parents and other adoptive relatives also gain the right to inherit from the adopted child.

Adopted Children Who Are Not Included in a Will

Intestate law often applies to adopted children who are not specifically named in the will of the adopted parent. Usually this occurs when they are adopted after the will was made and it was never amended.

The laws in approximately 42 States address this situation.3 Generally, adopted individuals are included in class gifts and other terms of relationship in accordance with the rules for intestate succession.4 For example, if a will stipulates that all children of the deceased parent are entitled to an equal share, the adopted person is included whether or not he or she is specifically named. Also, when a parent fails to provide for any of his or her children, whether by accident or if the person was adopted after the will was made, that person shall have a share of the parent's estate as if the parent had died intestate. This last rule applies unless there is evidence that the omission was intentional or that the parent provided for the adopted person outside the will.

http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/inheritance.cfm

[natlegend]

I find it amazing that often when the subject of same-sex marriage comes up someone always cries "Oh won't someone think of the children!?", without realising that by discriminating against established same-sex couples who already have children (which of course is quite legal), they are in fact discriminating against those children as well. In that, by not allowing the parents to marry, you are telling the child that their family is 'abnormal' and 'wrong'.