MemeMachineGo!

A demonstration of defending family values in Oklahoma.

Beaumont moved to be with Meadows in his partner’s hometown of Bristow, Okla., a place of 4,300 people. Together, they bought a ranch and raised Beaumont’s three sons. The mortgage and most of the couple’s possessions were put in Meadows’ name.

During the day, Meadows worked as a comptroller for Black & Decker. He’d drop the boys at school on his way to work. At home, Beaumont took care of the ranch, feeding and tagging cattle, cooking and cleaning, and once built a barn.

“As far as I was concerned, I had two dads,” said one of Beaumont’s sons, now 33, who requested anonymity. He was 2 years old when Meadows joined the family. […]

But in 1999, Meadows had a stroke and Beaumont took care of him for a year until he died at age 56. That’s where the fantasy of a life together on the range collides with reality. After a quarter-century on the ranch he shared with his partner, Beaumont lost it all on a legal technicality in a state that doesn’t recognize domestic partnerships. Meadows’ will, which left everything to Beaumont, was fought in court by a cousin of the deceased and was declared invalid by the Oklahoma Court of Appeals in 2003 because it was short one witness signature.

A judge ruled the rancher had to put the property, which was appraised at $100,000, on the market. The animals were sold. Beaumont had to move. Because Meadows had no biological children or surviving parents, his estate was divided up among his heirs. When the ranch sells, the proceeds are to be divided among dozens of Meadows’ cousins.

“They took the estate away from me,” said Beaumont, who said he put about $200,000 of his own money into the ranch. “Everything that had Earl’s name on it, they took. They took it all and didn’t bat an eye.”

Every state has common-law marriage rules that protect heterosexual couples. If someone dies without a will, or with a faulty one, his or her live-in partner is treated as the rightful inheritor. But only seven states currently give gay couples protections — such as inheritance rights and health benefits — through marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships. What’s more, Oklahoma last year amended its state constitution to ensure that neither marriage nor any similar arrangement is extended to same-sex couples.[…]

Last year, Beaumont moved to nearby Wewoka, Okla., to a one-bedroom place with 350 acres for his horses, white Pyrenees and Great Dane to roam. He said he was continuing to fight the cousins, who are suing for back rent for the years he lived on the ranch.

Let me emphasize. “Who are suing for back rent.” That’s just what Jesus’d do, I’m sure.

(via Berin Kinsman)