Freiberg: Look at All These Rights Long-Term Gay Couples Don’t Have

Many legislators speaking in defense of the bill to legalize same-sex marriage Thursday spoke in sweeping terms about what it would mean for those who can’t marry now. But Golden Valley Rep. Mike Freiberg (DFL-District 45B) made sure to emphasize concrete examples of the more than 500 rights that gay couples don’t share with heterosexual married couples.

He pointed out that they don’t have a right to:

• Notification in health facility if patients move or care change,
• Inclusion on health and insurance policies,
• Inherit agricultural property,
• Restitution if their partner is killed during crime,
• Vote absentee if they’re married to someone in the military,
• Control partners remains and
• A combined fishing license with their spouses.

“Legislators past and present have decided that being in a committed relationship entitles married partners to an assortment of legal rights,” Freiberg said Thursday on the House floor. “How can we, as representatives of all Minnesotans, deny these rights to a group of citizens whose relationships are as valid and worthy as mine is with my wife.”

Freiberg described receiving a letter from a constituent in Golden Valley. The constituent had been in a long-term relationship with a man who’s now in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. The letter Freiberg read described how they will now never be able to be married because the man can no longer give informed consent.

“I want to see a Minnesota where this can’t happen to another couple,” the letter concluded.

The bill passed 75-59.