(no subject)

[heidi]

I've played with the oft-used Marriage Is For Everyone image and would love to have icons avaiable to everyone based on the ones I'm putting here

Unmarried couples don't have the right to take time off from work under the Family and Medical Leave Act, which families use when a spouse or a child becomes ill.

At many companies and governmental bodies, health insurance or other benefits are offered to domestic partners. But the employee must pay income tax on the value of that benefit. If the couple were married, there would be no tax for the spouse's insurance. Some gay couples instead buy a second policy to avoid the tax cost. Or they make their partner a dependent for tax purposes to get around the IRS.

If one partner in a gay relationship loses his or her job, the other partner cannot continue health insurance coverage at their own cost under the federal law known as COBRA. Not so for married couples.

Insurance companies often will not sell gay couples life insurance on each other because insurance companies typically require someone to have an ''insurable interest'' in order to buy the policy on someone else. An insurable interest is usually considered marriage or a business partnership.

When people are married, they can make unlimited financial gifts to each other. So a high-income spouse can shift all he or she wants to a spouse. In a gay couple, gifts are subject to an annual tax law limit of $11,000.

In a married couple, the surviving spouse can roll over the inherited 401(k) or IRA without paying any tax on the money. In a gay, unmarried couple, the proceeds of the account have to be distributed. That means they become taxable income to the survivor. Again, gays pay tax while married people do not.

Unmarried couples cannot own property as tenants in the entirety, a legal status that is reserved for married couples. This legal status helps to protect a couple's property in bankruptcy proceedings. Gay couples can't get it.

In a medical emergency, same-sex partners are often not legally recognized by healthcare providers as family and therefore not allowed to make decisions for each other. This has led to same-sex partners even being denied visits at the hospital.

Now, to reduce the flist-spammage...

: fans self

: brains self. THAT IS JUST SO WRONG WRONG WRONG! Without the facial hair, he'd look PERFECT. Will someone PLEASE do a moustache-free version of the DVD next winter? PLEASE? And for now, can anyone remove it for icons? WAH!

Must. Renovate. Bad. Place.