Why we need gay marriage

Obama will announce same sex fed benefits today.

Yay! I agree with that, but without some formality of same sex marriage or civil unions or whatever, you have to write these weird legal bits defining when a threshold has been met to qualify for partner benefits, and these thresholds tend to vary from benefit to benefit and from each piece of legislation to the next. It makes the benefit process much more complicated.

Legally, we need an institution to recognize gay relationships.

There's also the politics of this act. Obama has been taking alot of heat from the gay community over some recent support for DOMA in a court case, not changing "Don't ask, Don't tell," appointments, and some other stuff.

But if you're going to play politics with a group's issues, it works better if you don't admit it.

But administration officials said the timing of the announcement was intended to help contain the growing furor among gay rights groups. Several gay donors withdrew their sponsorship of a Democratic National Committee fund-raising event next week, where Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is scheduled to speak.

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