For one detailed example, an AP analysis by David Crary describes what faces a Massachusetts married gay couple moving a short distance to Connecticut. Brian Rice and Jason Kelliher find that their new state won't recognize their marriage and that the wispy version of civil union it offers is at best a giant step backwards.
As a Lambda Legal attorney, David Buckel, put it, "There are lots of families in states where it's harder to be a strong family, where the state does everything it can to weaken you."
To wit, Rice and Kelliher can't file taxes jointly. They have to create a new, narrow will to be sure one can inherit or even care for the other. The many ordinary deeds and expectations of other marrieds are no longer theirs. Fortunately in Stamford, Rice's law firm at least offers domestic partner health benefits. That's not a given for most same-sex couples.
Meanwhile, the anti-gay, anti-SSM forces are heavily handedly about the business of doing what their Fright and Spite Circuses dishonestly said pro-SSM groups would do and have not. They are trying to use their DoMA or similar legislation to strip existing rights from same-sex couples playing by the local rules.
- In Michigan, conservatives are suing to bar local governments and public universities from offering health benefits. (How anti-capitalist, as well as anti-democracy, all in the name of kicking the gays.)
- In Nebraska, where law forbade any legal status for same-sex couples before a Federal judge struck it for unconstitutionality, the state wants to figure out how to re-pass it so that it goes into force.
- In Ohio, anti-gays want to force Miami University to stop offering health insurance for partners of employees.
- In New Jersey, Ocean County officials would not transfer death benefits to the lesbian partner of a cop dying of cancer.
Taking basic rights from any group that has them is not what the country should be about.
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