Texas Couple Forced Apart By Estranged Sister

From The New Civil Rights Movement: 

A Texas man says he and his partner were together for 34 years but his partner’s sister has now forced them apart, taken their home, and his partner’s finances — and done it legally because they weren’t married. For the last six years his partner, Jim, who is older, suffered from Alzheimer’s. Jim’s estranged sister, Lon Watts writes on Facebook, was able to take their home and Jim’s finances through the courts by filing for guardianship — despite Lon having power of attorney. Lon Watts writes:

I’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO SEE HIM AGAIN! She got his bank account from Social Security Disability and sold his house out from under me. I had 2 weeks to vacate our home of 12 years. [sic] 

If we were EQUAL in the eyes of the law we would be together till the end. But as it stands in Texas, a money hungry greedy relative was able to steal our life and toss me out as trash to pad her pocketbook. I pray God has mercy on her soul for her evil deeds. I am content knowing the world is coming around to acknowledge that ALL HUMANS ARE CREATED EQUAL and SHOULD HAVE EQUAL RIGHTS.

Lon’s story has been shared almost 3000 times on Facebook and has more than 3000 likes. Sadly, Lon and Jim’s story, and others like it, are the exact reason why marriage must be extended to all same-sex couples across the entire nation.

This is what is at stake as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on California's Proposition 8. The court could make a sweeping decision that would affect marriage equality across the nation. Most legal scholars, however, see such a ruling unlikely, in favour of a ruling that applies only to California. The court has surprised us before though.

Things like this should not happen and had marriage been an option for this couple, it would not have. It is bad enough that one of them is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease (trust me, I have seen its affects firsthand), but that someone has so much hate where their heart should be to put a restraining order in place keeping two people in love apart after being together for 34 years is absolutely unfathomable. The rest of the story just makes an already horrible situation even worse. When we are fighting for the equality of the LGBT community and same-sex couples, this is the kind of tragedy we are trying to prevent. No one should have to go through what this couple is suffering.