Both of us have made substantial pension contributions over many years which for a heterosexual couple would help pay for a surviving spouse's pension.

BBC: 'Be proud of our gay citizens'

Why, she and her lawyers argued, should her relationship with Spyer be any different when it came to rights, taxes and more than a heterosexual couple?

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No heterosexual married couple or their employers pay that penalty.

CNN: Gay Americans pay more taxes for fewer rights

The ruling makes Brazil one of very few South American nations, after Argentina and Uruguay, to allow gay unions with benefits similar to those afforded a heterosexual married couple.

BBC: Brazil Supreme Court awards gay couples new rights

As for medically assisted procreation, it is another problem: As of today, it is simply forbidden unless the couple is heterosexual and married or able to prove they has lived together for at least two years.

CNN: Gay rights: How U.S. leads the way

After that point, as word slowly spread, doctors began to quietly experiment with artificial insemination with donor sperm, working only with infertile heterosexual couples, turning to friends of the couple or -- once again -- their medical students.

CNN: Science led to gay families: Law should follow