If the plan was to make it a Civil Union and still restrict it to hetero couples, then it would be a useless endeavor. But that wasn’t the proposal under discussion so you’re building a strawkid, 'cause it ain’t even big enough to be a strawman.
If changing the name will win the support of enough people who wouldn’t support it otherwise, then there is a need to change the name.
From the article I linked in the OP:
If Parente and others like her are willing to consider the idea, then I support that discussion.
Indeed, that’s sort of the point. In a way it’s amusing. Which is more important? To have all the substance of equality, including the name of the legal status, or to hold out, fingers in ears, breath held tightly, until all demands are met–no compromise is permitted, only 100% total surrender is acceptable? If gay activists come out against this measure, they will destroy a lot of public sympathy. The theocrats can then turn around and say “See, we offered them a compromise that made everybody equal, but they refused to take it.”
Is that what is being proposed? No. Why the utter contempt for any and all compromise? Why the take-no-prisoners, 100% victory or extermination attitude?
If this is what it looks like it will be (all new legal bondings between two people, regardless of sex, will be known as “civil unions” and hold the exact same rights and privileges that the bonding currently known as “marriage” does), I think you’ll see far fewer gay activists than Conservative Christian activists protesting it. I support this, even given a grandfathering of current legal marriages to continue being known as “marriage” on the record (although they’d be functionally equivalent to the new civil unions).
Sure there is. While it may not be your case, a large number of Americans object to the institution of marriage being assaulted by homosexuality. The theory is that marriage is a religious institution, which is another debate, but nonetheless, the intent is not to infringe on the concept of “marriage.”
Just because a settlement like this doesn’t agree with you does not make it invalid.
After all, one of the favorite arguments of anti-SSM folk is that the majority of the population is against it. If the majority of the population feels that the legal status of marriage should be exchanged for civil unions, don’t you kinda have to go with the flow? Or does tyrrany of the majority only work when you agree with it? Or is there some reason that you feel that a minority population needs to be prevented from engaging in certain actions?
Even it if is sleight of hand, tough shiat. One could argue that the concept of marriage is sleight of hand. There tends to be a lot of that in politics.
You can also still call it a marriage and extend it to homosexual couples.
It truly baffles me that so many people are so enthusiastic about this “solution” to the problem of same sex marriage. It’s the same bloody system you’ve got right now, aside from the current lack of equality. That so many people seem to think it’s somehow superior to the status quo plus allowing SSM is a sad testament to the ability of people to think critically.
I mean, I can understand why some would support it on strategic grounds - if we change one of the words, enough people will support equality that we might actually get equality, so let’s go ahead and change one of the words - that makes sense to me. But the people who oppose SSM but support this proposal just baffle me. They are simply not thinking clearly.
And here the come out of the woodwork, the 100% victory at all costs or nothing crowd. It doesn’t matter that the SUBSTANCE will be freely available, it is still outright wrong because the APPEARANCE is not changed.
Remember, reality means nothing if the right words are not part of the incantation. If “marriage” by name isn’t the trophy, then there is no victory, whatsoever, ask any dogmatic.
What the heck are you talking about? I’m merely pointing out that the anti-SSM pro-civil union people are muddled in their thinking. I am not opposed to this compromise position, except that I think it’s extraordinarily stupid that it should be seen as a compromise position by so many people - since it isn’t. It’s precisely the same thing as just allowing SSM under the current system, except with the hassle of changing a myriad of statutes to accomodate a content-free semantic change.
It’s not content-free. If it really changes the ability of a large number of people to form legally-recognized long-term domestic unions, it is most certainly not content-free.
Symbols have reality, even if dogmatic materialists don’t want to admit to that.
Speaking as a person who was mildly offended at the notion that the government had to give its approval (i.e., a license) before I could get married, and also speaking as a nonbeliever who couldn’t care any less about the effect of two folks obtaining a religious blessing for their relationship, I am opposed to the label of “civil unions.”
I am not “civil unioned” to my wife. We are married. That label does make a difference in the real world. I do not want to be relegated to the back of the bus because I do not seek governmental approval of my relationship, and I do not wish to be denied the label of marriage because I do not seek the sanction of a religious body.
You want legal protections and tax and social security granted by a contract without having the government involved, and to be joined together without having a religion involved. That right?
For what it is worth, I’m sure there could be atheist groups that perform “marriages,” if the word is so important to you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a religious thing.
But it is content-free. Sure, the semantic change might alter the way people think about it, but that is not because it is a meaningful change; rather it is because the people who change their thinking are being irrational. Irrationality annoys me.
I don’t think you understand me. Perhaps it is my fault.
The “civil unions for all” proposal is that we will change the name of civil marriage to civil unions, but leave all legal benefits and obligations intact, and extend them to same-sex couples. These civil unions will be separate from religious marriages. Of course, civil marriages are already separate from religious marriages. In other words, nothing is changed but the name, and suddenly people don’t object to it anymore. This is irrational.
Some very key things are changed. The practice of discrimination is stopped. It opens up, as mentioned above, the concept of a true civil union between two people who are not sexually involved. It is a change of marriage from a purely sexual liason tied to law to a legal one that may or may not involve sex. That is a huge difference, in most people’s eyes.
In any case, the fact that it is irrational to you is irrelevant. If it works, it works.
No, you really don’t understand me. I’m talking about the irrationality of objecting to same-sex civil marriage as a moral abomination, but thinking that same-sex civil unions are just hunky dory. This is irrational, and I defy you to explain why I’m wrong on this point.
I have, as I explicitly stated above, absolutely no problem with using the word union instead of marriage if it results in the bigoted idiots of this world dropping their resistance to equal rights. However, the mere fact that it might have this result merely confirms that they’re idiots.
Or, in other words, I understand why Homebrew has come to this position, but I simply cannot fathom why Bricker endorses it.
It may not be rational, but it works. I don’t know, I’m certainly not in that statistic, so I will not speak for them, but for the most part I assume it has to do with the “religious” and social overtones of marriage, traditionally defined as being between a man and a woman.
Different strokes for different folks. One could make the argument that they are idiots nonetheless.
If changing the name of something removes objection and ends discrimination, for whatever reason, then so be it. I don’t care if it is called farbleglobber, as long as the legal equality is there. If people need to behave irrationally to do it - well, they are already behaving irrationally, so no big change.
Ah, but the beauty of this “compromise” (which, as several people have noted, is no compromise at all, except in semantics), is that the force of custom WILL have you and your wife “married”, no matter that the offical government paperwork says “civil union”. And over time, the same transformative effect will spill over to SS couples - and viola!, they’re married (in the eyes of everyone except government beaurocrats and a small fringe of homophobes and ultra-conservative religious types).
I mean, really: can you picture anyone chatting with a friend or a family member and saying something like “Didn’t Minty and his wife get civilly unioned last July?” Nope; they’ll ask “Didn’t Minty and his wife get married last July?” even if no religious ceremony at all was held to commemorate the civil union. And over time, in popular usage, spillover will occur as people become more comfortable with the reality of legal SS relationships, and Jim and Steven will also be “that nice married couple down the street”, not “that nice civilly unioned couple down the street”.
It’s a sneak approach, really; give the folks with irrational objections the word “marriage” temporarily in exchange for full and equal legal rights for ALL couples, whether same sex or opposite sex, then allow the larger culture to slowly take the word back (in every truly meaningful sense) over time.
