Why should Navratilova be held to Hetero marriage obligations when she is denied the benefits?

If she had been allowed to legally marry, she would probably have legally required a prenup to protect her extremely considerable assets.

Since our society denies her the right of marriage, she can also blow off the responsibilities.

And I share the lack of sympathy for bed partners who assume they deserve half an accomplished person's lifelong assets. One might ask what the plaintiff brought to the relationship. Money, a career of their own?

Or just some same-sex gold-digging?

Give the rights before applying the sanctimonious scorn.

This is the intro to an article by a gay activist which appears in this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian, assessing the 40 years since Stonewall, that perhaps Martina would agree with.

THE QUEER ISSUE: Who, exactly, does gay marriage benefit?

By Tommi Avicolli Mecca

news@sfbg.com

With a 2010 state proposition on gay marriage in the works and a national gay rally on the Washington Mall being planned for October 10-11 of that year, it's obvious that more and more of the LGBT community's resources are being funneled into the battle for marriage equality, while other causes go begging.

Already gay marriage has become a black hole that is sucking untold amounts of money, time, and energy out of our community. In the 2008 election alone, gay marriage supporters raised $43.3 million to defeat Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative that California voters passed by 52 percent. It may be the biggest chunk of change the community has ever spent for a single fight.

A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES

I'm not against gay marriage. If queer couples want to be as miserable as straight ones, that's their choice. Marriage is a failed institution. With a 54.8 percent divorce rate nationally and a 60 percent rate here in California, there's no doubt in my mind that heterosexual "wedded bliss" is more of an oxymoron than a reality....

...those with assets are encouraged to draw up a cohabitation agreement before anybody other than a platonic roommate moves in. Civil unions, open to gays, obligate each partner to spousal support similar to that of marriage in the event of break-up.

I agree with your sentiments, but there's a flaw in your argument: "Palimony" cases have established the right of an unmarried longterm partner to receive support after a breakup. In deciding that Martina owes her former partner support, the court would be acknowledging the equality of their relationship to a common law marriage between a man and a woman.

On another point, how stupid was it for EITHER of them to enter a relationship without a prenup? Martina should have learned her lesson from Judy Nelson, with whom she was rumored to have settled for about $3.5 million. And Layton should have realized that Martina's verbal promises were worthless.

Are there homosexual relationships that last a lifetime?

Yes, of course.

My experience tells me however, that most homosexual people treat relationships like serial monogamy.

I support full rights for homosexual unions, up to marriage, although as an earlier poster pointed out, in Canada the idea of a civil union with almost the same rights was common for many years. However, along with rights come responsibilities, and as it stands now, according to law, they were just two women living together, each always free to go their separate ways.

No judge is going to create law from the bench over this, even if that judge is sympathetic.

I would put this break-up in the celebrity partner category (which probably has the highest rate of relationship failure).

Mick Jagger wouldn't marry Jerry Hall for years because his divorce from Bianca cleaned him out.

This is another example of why we need marriage. Having said that, anyone partnering up with Navratilova can be expected to know that means she won't want to share her wealth with them after the breakup. Some support may be in order, but the partner should not have had any illusions about where Martina stood. Marriage would have the benfit of forcing Martina to put that in writing up front.

A great deal has been written about whether straight America is ready; less has been written about whether gay America is ready. Not just to be held to the same contractual standards as heterosexual couples but to believe (after years of being told otherwise) that their relationships really are of equal standing. And to go on believing it when those relationships collapse.

This is incredibly insulting to those gay couples who don't happen to be celebrities and who have honored their relationships as much as or more than their straight counterparts. I am with my husband for 17 years, only legally married in the past one year. Just as we did not wait around for the rest of the world to tell us that our relationship is legitimate, we did not wait for it to become legally recognized to decide for ourselves that our relationship is bound by the same responsibilities. Who are you to lecture us or question whether we are ready?

Not to mention that it is disingenuous to discuss Navratilova's situation as if it were representative of gay relationships. Straight people in the midst of divorce employ lawyers to find any way, legal or otherwise, to get around their legal responsibilities, particularly when a lot of money is involved; celebrity divorce can be even more treacherous. But you don't presume to characterize all straight relationships in those terms, or question their commitments and standards. You would never look at Jon & Kate, or Alec & Kim, or Donald & Ivana, and then propose that straight people as a whole haven't earned the right to marry.

This kind of double standard stinks of the kind of condescension we hear more often now, about how gays need to kowtow and placate the majority in order to prove we are good little boys and girls, non-threatening, to be worthy of something they have without demand or argument.

If you want to be even close to fair, do a point-by-point analysis of the rights and responsibilities that are part of marriage; prove to us, without laughing, how virtuously straight people have honored them, and then discuss whether gay relationships meet the same standard. Be sure to take into consideration that many gay relationships have thrived without those inherent advantages or legal responsibilities that often bind straight couples who otherwise would split.