Read the fine print on marriage

I have a lot of issues with the legal institution of marriage, and I have for a long time. For one, marriage equality isn't "gay," nor is it exclusively about same-sex couples. Before the slight expansion of marriage rights, legally married couples were usually "heterosexual," but I know several couples who are married and aren't binary-gendered and/or are same-sex  because one partner's documentation has the wrong and/or pre-transition sex. Further, the things that are often tied to marriage -- like employer-based spousal health benefits -- are things that I think are fundamental rights that shouldn't be tied to relationships status. Overall I don't think the government should be in the business of recognizing marriages. If there must be some government-sanctioned definition of family, then we should get to choose who that is, no matter what. Legal unions shouldn't be about "love," they should be about legality. Healthy relationships of any sort are about consent, and consent is not possible without knowledge and understanding. Which leads me to my big issue.

Marriage equality activists talk about 1,138 rights denied to couples* who can't get married, and most of those aren't solved by state-specific civil unions or domestic partnerships, according to the Human Rights Campaign (who I do not usually trust, but they happen to be deeply involved in this issue).

I count 12 rights on the list at the above link:

1. Power of Attorney to make medical decisions
2. Family Medical Leave (for spouse, elder, or child care)
3. Legal entry for immigration sponsorship
4. Non-adoptive parental rights
5. Joint right and responsibility to property/debt
6. Social security retirement income for non-working (or lower income) spouses
7. Limited tax liability for "dependent"spouses/children/elders
8. Disability income based on household size and/or receiving income for your partner
9. Military/veteran support and death benefits
10. Automatic property inheritance
11. Health insurance through COBRA
12. Federal benefits for widowed federal employees

Of course, there are permutations of these. So let's say there are ten different specific rights in each of these issues -- that's 130. Where are the other 1,108? What are they, and why don't I know?

And the thing is, I'm one of those queers who's supposed to know this stuff! I should know what rights I'm being denied. But I don't. And neither do you. Neither does my mother, who's been married and divorced twice. Neither does my friend who married the love of her life last weekend. Even when we do the legal paperwork right -- like Janice Lengbehn who, with her children, was prevented from seeing her partner (and their mother) as she died because the hospital refused to accept her POA -- it's misunderstood or ignored because somehow a marriage certificate (or lack thereof) is more powerful than equally legal documentation stating who my family is.

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but these are government-sanctioned relationships, which are limited to only some kinds of people and couples, and whose terms are unknown to the vast majority of people who receive the applicable license. These are not agreements made between people; they're agreements each person makes blindly with the government, binding two people together on either side of an unchosen middleman. It's the government saying, "Here, take these 1,138 rights and responsibilities for me. You won't know what they are until I'm screwing you over using that paper you signed without knowing what it meant."

Look, I'd trust my partner with my life -- I already do. But am I going to foist responsibilities on him without either of us knowing what they are? Am I going sign my life, livelihood, and who-knows-what-all-else away through some unknown pathway that was decided by the government and not me or my partner?

No. Because I don't sign contracts without reading the fine print.

*I'm told by a colleague/buddy that this number comes from an audit of state laws that show 1,138 times that spouse rights/responsibilities are mentioned.