Gay marriage should be legal in the United States

I accept Con's definitions. Hopefully this will be a good debate. Ultimately, gay marriage is an issue of civil rights, and I will argue on the basis that the government should provide equal benefits to gay couples as it already provides for heterosexual couples. There are both state and federal benefits, although the majority of federal. Some of these benefits include: joint parenting; joint adoption; joint foster care, custody, and visitation (including non-biological parents); status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent; joint insurance policies for home, auto and health; dissolution and divorce protections such as community property and child support; immigration and residency for partners from other countries; inheritance automatically in the absence of a will; joint leases with automatic renewal rights in the event one partner dies or leaves the house or apartment; inheritance of jointly-owned real and personal property through the right of survivorship (which avoids the time and expense and taxes in probate); benefits such as annuities, pension plans, Social Security, and Medicare; spousal exemptions to property tax increases upon the death of one partner who is a co-owner of the home; veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans; joint filing of tax returns; joint filing of customs claims when traveling; wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner and children; bereavement or sick leave to care for a partner or child; decision-making power with respect to whether a deceased partner will be cremated or not and where to bury him or her; crime victims' recovery benefits; loss of consortium tort benefits; domestic violence protection orders; judicial protections and evidentiary immunity; [1] The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection under the laws. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." [2] Since there are thousands of laws pertaining to marriage, gay couples should also be protected in their right to marry under state law. Marriage is outside the federal government's jurisdiction, according to the tenth amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." [3] This is my short argument. I do have a number of other arguments that attempt to refute common arguments against this one, but I shall wait for Con to state his arguments, so that I can attempt to refute them specifically. Nonetheless, I have shown, as my Con has stated, that "the United States is obligated to make gay marriage legal." States are obligated to give gay couples equal protection under the law, while the federal government should have no say in the gay marriage issue, making the federal government unable to ban gay marriage itself unless through an amendment to the constitution. Sources: [1] http://www.religioustolerance.org... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com...