The problem here is that marriage is an emotional issue. Either way we are talking about legislating an emotional issue. So people are acting like one side is based off of pure emotion and the other is based off of reason. That’s patently false, both sides are based off of emotion. If it weren’t emotional then why would Pro-SSM people have a problem with calling it a Civil Union?
My attitude’s not emotional at all, except in the most general terms that equality before the law is something a liberal society should pursue. The failings of civil unions have already been described in banal unemotional terms here and elsewhere.
Maybe because nowhere in the United States does a civil union give the same rights as a marriage? Civil Union is separate, and not equal, so it seems quite rational for SSM proponents to dismiss it as an option. If a legislature ever made civil unions exactly the same as marriage, perhaps that reason for opposing it might be weakened. But since it hasn’t happened yet, why should proponents of gay equality accept it?
But why not fix civil unions rather than calling it marriage? If they are for all intents and purposes exactly the same legally, just one is defined as between a man and a woman and the other is defined as between the same sex, what rational reason is there to INSIST that the government legally consider it to be a marriage? You could easily define Civil Unions to be identical to marriage in every way in the eyes of the law.
“Easily” ? Across all the hundreds of relevant existing statutes and whatever statutes will come about in future?
It’s far easier to just call it a marriage in the first place.
Except obviously they’re not, since they’re separate.
If we’re proposing to call it a Civil Union for all kinds of couples, I have no problem with it. If we were to replace the concept of “civil marriage” with a Civil Union, or even better, replace the current equation whereby (marriage license + solemnization of your choice = legally married) with (Civil Union = legally united), removing the word “marriage” from the legal picture altogether (allowing couples to pursue religious marriage separately), I’d be delighted. I have yet to see an opponent of SSM suggest that as an option.
The problem, as we’ve discussed elsewhere, comes when we continue to use the term “marriage” for one kind of couple (male-female) while applying a new term, “civil union,” to other kinds of couples. This creates a separate-but-equal situation. Historically, separate-but-equal arrangements are impossible to maintain or to enforce, and actually tends to end up perpetuating inequality rather than eliminating it.
And why not make blacks have their own separate drinking fountains? Those fountains are just as good. And the seats in the back of the bus are just as comfortable. :rolleyes:
You could do that, but again, no legislature in the United States has done so to date, so why should gays & lesbians pursue that option? especially when several states now do have same-sex marriage, with full equality? As between an option that has been implemented, and one that has never been implemented, why not continue to press for the option that has been implemented?
What sort of cites do you need? There is no reference to monogamy in the New Testament except for some instructions for selecting episkopoi and elders in Timothy and Titus. Judaism accepted polygyny for an additional 1100 years until Rabbi Gershom pronounced monogamy to be the standard by which his people would live, (in part, to avoid hassle from monogamous Christians). His practice spread to all the Ashkenazim, and was later adopted, for the most part, by the Sephardim and Mizrahim. (We’re talking rules, here. In practical matters, Judaism has always favored monogamy, but they did not mandate it.)
Roman Law did not even recognize polygyny, although concubinage flourished at different times.
Legal knowledgeable Dopers please correct me if what I’m about to say is wrong, please. Thanks.
That’s not how the law works. You *can’t *easily define Civil Unions to be identical to marriage. If the law were Unix, you could just edit some universal shell resource file and add
alias Civil_Union=‘marriage’
so that every time a Civil Union were invoked in some way, the rules for marriage ran instead. If the law were Java, you could just make Civil Unions a reference to marriage
referenceType marriage;
referenceType civilUnion=marriage;
so that invoking a Civil Union truly was the same as invoking marriage
But that’s not how law works. When making law, legislators need to remember to update each definition separately. If the tax code changes with regard to the thing called “marriage,” it needs to be amended with regard to the thing called “Civil Union.” It’s like one of the bad old languages:
x=5
y=x
x=6
y=x
x=8
x is now 8 but y is still equal to 6
print x
print y
Why create a system that practically invites legislators to screw up, when we can create a system that ensures equality all around? Especially since, as was just pointed out, it’s already being done.
But tom, what about Jesus’ saying on a man and a woman being one flesh? That’s the verse I’ve seen cited the most as the basis for monogamy: Matthew 19: 4-6:
Jesus was quoting Genesis and represents the ideal to which both Judaism and Christianity have aspired. I’m just talking about the practical realities of how it became law.
ETA: Tertullian wrote a paper defending monogamy around 200, which seems to indicate that the matter had not yet been resolved in law for the church at that time.
Sure - but I would think that for Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, Jesus’ statements would be taken as the governing moral principle. The fact that it took a while to implement in the church and in the civil society would just be an example of the yeast at work. Wouldn’t detract from the primary value of Jesus’ statement.
At the most basic, they are missing the cultural connotation that provides an understanding of what the phrase even actually means. Are they the equivalent of marriage in every single little possible respect except for the name? (In which case, why are we playing semantics games?) Are there things that married people are entitled to that civilly unioned people are not? (If so, what are they?) People assume that there must be some functional difference because the names are different.
There is no ease or facility by which people understand what a civil union is to them. A marriage, on the other hand, is something that everyone gets even when they’re not married themselves. Everyone knows married people. Three year olds play wedding and house with the couple and one cooks dinner for the other and they have a dog and a baby. Three year olds don’t play civil union. Most people don’t know people who have a civil union, or don’t know that they do.
Consequently, there is a difference in respect for civil unions. It isn’t marriage. Everyone has gone to great lengths to say unequivocally that they are not marriage and should not be considered marriage. They’re just “like” marriage. They extend “some” of the benefits of marriage. It’s all very hazy and nebulous. But they’re not to same, so they’re not treated the same, even though the people who create civil union laws as the great compromise say that they’re functionally identical.
Companies that have historically provided access to benefits (such as health insurance) to the new spouses of employees almost instantaneously have entered into protracted battles, steadfastly refusing to extend benefits to partners in civil unions because they’re not “spouses.”
The sickening catch-22 of this is that because these couples have a legal recognition to their relationship within the state, if the partner who is uninsured because of this “not a spouse” loophole should become seriously ill, both partners could be held liable for the resulting medical bills. Their entire estate could be jeopardized. And yet, because of the current state of federal law, the non-ill partner would have limited protection in terms of federal bankruptcy laws because according to the feds, the obligation to pay their civil union partner’s bills doesn’t exist. And of course the couple could not file for bankruptcy jointly, as a married couple could.
Couples with civil unions have had hospital personnel question if that grants them next of kin status for making healthcare decisions and even for basic access to their partners during medical crises. Time is wasted and people are going untreated while nurses and doctors play identity games. Couples have been forced to show paperwork before their rights have been recognized. When was the last time you ever heard of a married couple being made to prove their marriage, that carried around their marriage certificate just in case someone questioned? It just doesn’t happen.
Because the people who are not intimately affected by civil union statutes do not take the time to understand all the details and nuances of those statutes, couples with civil unions are still being advised to have powers of attorney and medical directive packets made up which they need to be able to have to hand to make sure that their needs and wishes are met. And even then, it’s a struggle. This struggle also impacts their children, as the hospitals get into games of “well, you can’t both be the mother, so who has the legal right to say…”
And of course, a civil union only exists within a single state. If you are married in Nebraska, you’re married in Alaska, and Maine and Texas and Florida and Wyoming too. If you have a New Jersey civil union, you’ve got nothing in Pennsylvania. You’ve got nothing in New York. You’ve got nothing in Delaware. You’d better have a medical power of attorney and everything else you can possibly pay (thousands of dollars, as opposed to a <$100 marriage license) for to create a nexus of protection around your relationship because if you travel, if you’re one of the scores of Americans (especially in the northeast) who live in one state and work in another, you’re unprotected.
And on the federal level, you’ll pay taxes as a single person. You will still face having to pay an estate tax ransom to keep things that are your own, that you paid for and put your own equity into, if you’re fortunate enough to have a great success and then end up losing your partner. Your partner, and in some instances your children, will not have access to survivor benefits under Social Security. If you or your spouse is accused of a crime, you have no spousal privilege and can be forced to testify about things that you would be able to keep secret if your relationship was called a marriage. (There is even a question as to whether or not civil unions allow for spousal privilege in state courts, even in the state that issued the union.) Pensions, military benefits, all go away when you’re in a civil union and you die, but if you’re married, they can survive you for another 90 years.
Civil unions do not work. It’s a broken, stupid compromise with bigotry that has put people’s lives, livelihoods, families, futures and wellbeing at risk.
That link, by the way, will take you to the testimony of several dozen people who can explain to you the various ways in which having a civil union has not, in fact, enhanced their lives in the fashion that those who “agreed” to the compromise proclaimed that they would be. There is also testimony from several people who, because of the catch-22s especially regarding healthcare, are actually less protected by having a civil union than they were when they had nothing.
This is,of course, complete nonsense.
The garbage about how the anti-abortion movement wants to hurt women is the usual self-evidently stupid hate speech.
Regards,
Shodan
that passage does not prohibit SS couples from being equally acceptable.
Does this have anything to do with the OP?
well, there you get into a matter of interpretation. some might take your position, but others would argue that if Jesus meant to allow other types of marriage he would have said so.
But the reason I mentioned it was to respond to tomndebb’s statement in post # 33, about monogamy not being mentioned in the NT. I’m not convinced that it’s as cut and dried as he suggests in that post.