Marriage Equality Now

Shaker rrp—who, in addition to gracing us with her brilliant and witty comments, has also been a guest blogger—has written a beautiful and thought-provoking piece for The Advocate, "The Avoidable Death of Thomas Disch," about the suicide of a gay science fiction writer whose death may have been precipitated, in part, by an incident from which he'd have been shielded had he been married to his partner of 35 years.

Writer Thomas Disch's life has been hard over the last few years. His partner of 35 years, the poet Charles Naylor, died in 2005 after a long struggle with cancer that used up their savings. His own health was not good: Disch, a big man, was diabetic and had difficulty walking. In October 2007, the landlord of his rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan's Union Square won a decision in appellate court against Disch -- because Charles Naylor's name was on the lease -- and was threatening to evict him.

…Thanks to the 1989 decision in Raviv v. Raviv, their Union Square apartment would have been considered part of their communal marital property in New York [if Disch and Naylor had been married] -- even though the lease was in only one spouse's name. Thomas Disch would at least have had the assurance that his home couldn't be taken away from him; his landlord would have had no legal standing to start proceedings against the grieving widower. But without marriage equality, same-sex couples have no protection against predatory landlords, hostile families, or unsympathetic courts.

Read the whole thing here.

And fuck you, Orson Scott Card.