Civil Union This!

The BBQ Pit
1

29 years ago last April, Barb and I committed before God to love and care for each other as a couple for a lifetime. This song, written by N. Paul Stookey for the wedding of his singing partner Peter Yarrow, was the song we used in that wedding to celebrate our union.

I have not seen the slightest bit of reason to change my mind in all the intervening years about what that song says about what it means to be married.

And therefore, I call out:

[ul][li]Those who would convert all marriages to “civil unions” as a way to get out of an argument[/li][li]Those who hold that their opinion on what a marriage is ought to be enforced on everyone else[/li][li]Those who believe that the love of other people is not as entitled to be celebrated in this way as their own was.[/ul][/li]
My marriage is something very deep and meaningful to me. I can change my last will and testament, I can change my church affiliation, I can change my legal name. But that’s something that’s rock solid and important, and a commitment that time is not going to change.

You’re under no obligation to believe in my God, or in God in the precise way I do. You’re under no obligation to change your mind about what a marriage is supposed to be or mean.

But you are under an obligation, either humanistic or Judaeo-Christian in its foundations, to treat others with love and respect. And that means not dictating to them what they ought to be able to do and believe because it happens to be what you do and believe.

I am fortunate that my church and the state I live in recognize that what Barb and I said and meant to each other has religious and legal validity.

Others are not.

That needs fixing.

But not by abolishing marriage in favor of “civil unions.” And not by legislating your own favorite definition to the detriment of others.

Yeah, maybe God said something about “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” And if that endorses your opinion about the bounds of your marriage, more power to you. But he also said, “And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” And both Hillel and Jesus held that up as half of the bottom line on what you needed to do first and foremost. So perhaps if you want to quote Scripture, you might start by quoting the passage that God Himself said was most important. And then start practicing it.

There are terms for denying to others what you enjoy yourself, or even what you’re not yourself interested in, so in your opinion nobody else ought to be either. If you don’t want to be called by them, then act accordingly.

2

Oh, calm down. Nobody wants to abolish marriage and nobody wants to destroy your marriage. The government calling your legal bond a “civil union” doesn’t do shit to your marriage, and you still have your marriage under God and with the church. Quit whining over semantics.

3

Bricker for one wants to abolish marriage. As a legal construct anyway. he wants to keep it as a religious construct (as if marriage requires a god to make it real) and perhaps a social construct.

4

Bravo, Poly.

5

As usual, Poly, you are the voice of reason and balance.

6

Polycarp, I didn’t need another reason to admire you. But thanks for providing one anyway.

7

Bravo, Polycarp!

8

And it is the greatest commandment, above all others. Thank you for pointing it out, Polycarp. Too bad it is sometimes necessary to do so.

9

Actually, it is number 2, after loving God.

And Polycarp, while the sentiment is right, I don’t think that’s what many folks mean when they say “make them all civil unions.” It isn’t a matter of dimishing marriage, it is just taking something sacred out of the secular and keeping it with the sacred where it belongs.

10

And if marriage had ever been purely religious then this position might have some merit.

11

With all due respect, that is simply not correct. The second sentence, not the first. Treating someone with love and respect DOES NOT mean that one is obligated to let everyone else do whatever the hell they want. For instance, taking it out of the superheated environment of homosexual marriage, if I love Kenneth Lay and respect his rights as a human being, that does not mean I have to sit back and let him loot Enron just because he has different beliefs about how to manage a company than I do. If that means imposing my beliefs about financial accounting on Kenny Boy that he disagrees with, then so be it.

12

[QUOTE=Dr. Lao]
Actually, it is number 2, after loving God.

[QUOTE]

You are right technically, of course, although one cannot love God if he doesn’t love his neighbor as himself.

13

Yes, but in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus defined the two commandments as identical.

14

Polycarp, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with regard to what bothers me a great deal about some of the SSM debates on the board. I haven’t put my finger on it until now, which is why I haven’t been a participant in these threads.
Why be in favor of homosexual civil unions with all the legal rights of marriage, but not calling said civil unions “marriage”? Why does a contract that confers identical rights and legalities need a different name depending on who it’s issued to?

Why advocate the end of all government-sanctified marriage in favor of civil unions, as a resolution to the gay marriage issue? It’s a ridiculous amount of work and red tape being proposed - plus the obvious fact that it’ll never happen.

If two men can fall in love, get married in a church that sanctions their union, hire a lawyer, go to the courthouse and the secretary of state’s office and city hall and wherever else, fill out forms, pay fees, and obtain many of the rights conferred to a heterosexual couple by a single piece of paper, and do it all legally (i.e., with the tacit blessing of the government), why not make it easier for all involved by simply sanctioning the marriage? (If two heteros went to all that trouble, people’d look at 'em sideways. Why not just get married, it’d be simpler, they’d say.)

Is it all just to keep the word “marriage” out of the hands of homosexuals? Stack the arguments on top of each other, and that’s what it appears.

15

And this would hold equally on those who want to expand the meaning of marriage as well as those who want to keep it to its traditional meaning, right?

No? I didn’t think so.

16

The difference being, moron, that those who want to “expand” the meaning are not, in the process, trying to deny anything to anyone. They simply seek to have themselves included in this important institution.

Those who want to keep the “traditional” meaning are specifically trying to deny something to certain people, even though allowing those people into the definition of marriage would not in any way reduce in value or significance the marriages that already exist.

17

No, actually it wouldn’t apply equally. Those asking for equal rights are not attempting to exclude anyone from the definition.

Do you understand that there is a difference between saying, “I want the same rights that you have,” and saying “You are not entitled to the same rights that I have?”

18

Whether or not expanding marriage denies anything to anyone, it is still forcing one’s view of marriage on everyone else. It was that, the enforcement of one’s viewpoint on another, which Polycarp chose to pit people for, so it is that which must be defended.

You can argue all you like about whether marriage is a right or not, whether anyone is excluded from marriage or not, whether gay marriage is an equal right to heterosexual marriage or not. I have no dog in that fight, but you cannot deny that the second one single government dime goes to the benefits of a gay spouse that all tax-payers have been forced to support one side of this question.

19

Polycarp, thank you for reminding me of that song. I just sent a copy to my wife, who is far, far away right now.

Everybody deserves the privilege of feeling the way I do towards my soul mate, be they straight, gay, bent, twisted, alien, or whatever.

20

Because pacifists don’t pay taxes (DoD). Nor vegetarians (DoAg). Nor anarchists (duh). Nor libertarians (welfare).

And death penalty opponents don’t pay taxes in Texas. Nor do people who object to divorce pay taxes in Nevada. Nor do opponents of gambling pay taxes in states with lotteries.

I see your point now.