3 Life-Changing Health Benefits of Legal Gay Marriage
The Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage means new rights for same-sex couples. (Photo: Stocksy)
Gay marriage is a constitutional right, according to a historic 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court today (June 26).
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, which he concluded by saying:
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
For more on the ruling, watch below:
However, even with the Supreme Court decision, states may still find ways to discriminate against same-sex couples — meaning it’s still important to uphold domestic partner benefits, experts say.
“Marriage equality still leaves LGBT employees open to risks and vulnerabilities that their non-LGBT counterparts are not subject to,” says the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). “For example, without complete nondiscrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity state to state, same-sex couples can be denied credit, housing, and public accommodation once they have been ‘outed’ by a public marriage license as required by their employer to maintain access to benefits (essentially equal pay for equal work). These distinctions in protections are significant, and expose LGBT people to risks when traveling or relocating to states that might honor their marriage license, but are still legally able to discriminate against them in the very core aspects of their daily lives.”
In a statement, HRC president Chad Griffin noted that “…what’s clear today is that our work isn’t done until every discriminatory law in this nation is wiped away. The time has come in this country for comprehensive federal LGBT non-discrimination protections. We now have to work harder than ever before to make sure LGBT Americans cannot be fired, evicted or denied services simply on the basis of the marriage license that they fought so hard to achieve.”
But today’s ruling does bring a new set of rights for gay couples. Here’s a look at some of the big ones:
The Right to Hospital Visitation
Marriage equality will make it easier for married LGBT patients to assert their visitation rights in hospitals (even those that remain noncompliant to 2011 federal regulations allowing patients to choose who they want to visit them, regardless of their relationship).
“Marriage or any sort of legal relationship should not have been an issue for hospital visitation since the guideline guarantees visitors of the patient’s choice,” Tari Hanneman, the deputy director of the Health and Aging Program at HRC, tells Yahoo Health. “While we don’t have specific stories of outright discrimination, we don’t doubt that it has happened. The bigger issue is that many people did not know about the visitation regulations, so they feared the worst if they were in a state that did not recognize their relationship — sometimes leading to delayed care or even prompting people to go to a neighboring state for care.”
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Furthermore, marriage equality will now ensure that a patient’s spouse, regardless of gender, is able to make medical decisions for the patient if he or she becomes incapacitated.
Prior to today’s ruling, federal regulations required hospitals to defer to a denoted surrogate in such cases. But in the absence of legal documents that explicitly assign a person’s surrogate and express his or her medical wishes, hospitals would then turn to their state’s “default surrogate selection priority lists” to appoint a surrogate. Since a patient’s spouse always holds the top spot on such a list, today’s ruling ensures that one spouse — including a same-sex spouse — is always able to make critical health care decisions for the other and for their children.
The Right to Health Care
Newly married same-sex couples will now qualify for the “special enrollment” period during which a spouse may be added to a person’s health insurance plan through the Affordable Care Act. Any employer who makes health insurance available to an employee’s spouse must now include same-sex spouses in these benefits.
The Right to Adopt
The ruling has a huge impact on same-sex couples seeking to grow their family through adoption. It allows both spouses to become legal adoptive parents of their child through joint adoption proceedings previously denied to them in many states. Now, both spouses will be recognized and treated as “equal applicants” throughout the adoption process and in the eyes of the law.
“There have been some efforts in states to constrain otherwise-parents who have the love and desire to care for a child as foster or adoptive parents,” says Ed Walz, a vice president of First Focus, a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families the priority in federal policy and budget decisions.
“It is encouraging that the court has spoken, that the law of the land now recognizes same-sex couples,” Walz tells Yahoo Health. “This sends a strong message that because there are so many kids out there who are in need of loving and supportive homes, politicians will not be able to stand in the way of those children finding homes because of their own ideology.”
The Supreme Court ruling makes it so that now both members of a same-sex couple can be treated as “equal applicants” in the adoption process. (Photo: Getty Images)
A key component of the adoption process is the home study. This is when a social worker visits the prospective adoptive family’s home and is required to ask about the relationship status of those in the home, as well as the history of their relationship and respective outlooks on parenting and family. Most adoption agencies require that a couple be married for two years prior to beginning the adoption process.
“If an adoption agency doesn’t recognize time spent as a couple before legal marriage, they are essentially engaging in bad practice and ruling out a family based on bias,” Ellen Kahn, the director of HRC’s Children, Youth & Families program, explains to Yahoo Health. “Many agencies in nonmarriage states have worked with ‘unmarried’ same-sex couples and have applied the same standards as they do for legally married couples, typically that they have been living together in a committed relationship for two years.”
“Our hope would be that adoption agencies would recognize that folks couldn’t get married prior to now, and that agencies would give couples credit for time together,” Cathryn Oakley, HRC legislative counsel, tells Yahoo Health. “But it would be a tough argument that it is discrimination to hold same-sex couples to the same standard as straight couples. Couples may be able to bring complaints against the agency administratively, though. ”
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One big question left to be determined is how today’s ruling will affect the way states provide funding for adoption agencies that do not recognize gay marriage (such as some religiously affiliated agencies), when the states themselves must recognize it.
Take adoption agency Bethany Christian Services, which receives state funding, for instance. During a 2012 legislative hearing, the CEO and president of Bethany told Congress: “At Bethany, we would never deny a family for their secular status, or single-parent, or anything of that nature. However, if the family would be in conflict with our religious beliefs, we would assist them to go to another agency.”
In other words, a same-sex couple could be turned away because their marriage conflicts with the religious beliefs held by Bethany — even now, after today’s Supreme Court decision. In light of last year’s Hobby Lobby ruling, in which corporations were granted the right to hold religious beliefs, this makes things complicated for same-sex couples seeking to build a family.
Future litigation is sure to come to refine the implications of marriage equality on adoption proceedings. Just a few weeks ago, Michigan, for instance, passed a state law that would let publicly funded adoption agencies refuse to place children with same-sex couples over religious objections. Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and North Dakota already have similar laws on the books, and such a law is currently being weighed in North Carolina.
Despite the roadblocks placed in the way of same-sex couples on the state level, the Supreme Court decision should still be considered a victory for same-sex couples looking to adopt, Walz says. “More than anything this ruling sends a strong message that the interests of family should trump the interest of ideology,” Walz says. “This is about what’s best for the children. And there are hundreds of thousands of children in the United States who need foster and adoptive parents. There are couples out there who would love them and provide for them and guide them to adult life. Politics shouldn’t stand in the way of those kids finding a loving family. [Today’s ruling] underscores a brighter future for children in need of supportive homes.”
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