Nothing besides, property rights for the spouse, insurance, tax benifts, etc…
Nonsense. Plenty of churches perform gay marriages:
Thanks for the link to the previous thread. I still think that government abandonment of the word “marriage” is the utopian ideal, but it’s become clear since that thread that the train has left the station, that same-sex marriage has won the key battles, and that the end of the war is in sight with a victory for same-sex marriage. Which is freakin’ awesome, far better than I suspected it would be just a few years ago. The marginal benefits to government abandonment of “marriage” would require a major shift in focus now, one that’s just not going to happen, and I’m fine with that; there’s no reason to go for a different strategy for equality, now that the marriage-equality strategy is proving so effective.
(If folks want to know what I mean by “marginal benefits,” go to that other thread–I don’t think I can express myself more carefully than I did in that thread.)
You’re not the only atheist/agnostic in the world. I would like to be married, and I am not a church-goer of any sort. Why should I be punished so that the government can placate bigots?
You’re not being punished; you have the same opportunity to marry as any believer.
Regards,
Shodan
Shakes, why do you believe that religious institutions have a prior claim on the word “marriage”? Others have pointed out that marriage is practiced by non-Christians the world over, but you should also remember that the church only got into the marriage business in a big way during the middle ages. Don’t make the mistake of assuming the way things were in 1620, or 1776, was the way they had been since the beginning of time or even the beginning of Christianity.
As for “Civil Union,” I think it’s a pretty good example of Orwell’s Newspeak.
And on a personal note, as a married gay man, I feel unreasonably attacked in that now that I’ve obtained this right, it looks like people are trying to take it away from me by destroying the word. It’s sort of dog-in-the-manger logic. If gays are going to marry, then the institution is tainted and we might as well do away with it altogether. Sort of like if I bought a house in your neighborhood and all the straight people suddenly move out.
There’s a proverb: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Nothing wrong with the word “marriage,” or “wedding.”
Here in Vancouver, BC, it’s Pride Weekend. All of the stores and banks, including the state-run liquor store, are getting ready for it with rainbow-coloured decorations. People greet each other with “Happy Pride!”, whether straight or gay. It’s just another ethnic holiday with a parade, in which politicians and businesses march along with clubs and organizations and people in silly costumes. It’s so god-damn normal it would make heads explode from Idaho to Florida. I know people resisted gay marriage when it was brought in, but less than ten years later we’ve moved on. You should try it.
I am an athiest, but I would like to have an eternal soul and be forgiven for all my sins. Am I being discriminated against by organized religion because I don’t believe in god?
This line is the silliest supposedly-reaonable comment I know of. Remember all those injustices that gay people hold up as having happened because gay marriages (or even gay relationships at all) are not recognized?
What you’re saying, whether you realize it or not, is let’s be fair: let’s deprive everyone of protection against them. Government being in the marrriage business is what makes those legal protections, well, legal, enforceable at law.
IMO a marriage should exist when two people contact it before witnesses and register this with some Keeper of Vital Statistics – normally, I’d think, a city or county clerk. The idea of licensing them is less than 120 years old – My maternal grandparents were so opposed to the idea of the state presuming to license who might and might not marry that they moved up their wedding date and married on New Years Eve, three hours before the licensing law went into effect, to snub their nose at it.
If the churches need a special name to show how ultra-super-duper-special their god-blessed marriages are, they already have that too: Holy Matrimony. Means a church marriage, nothing more or less.
Wrong. Government can protect the rights afforded to civil unions, the same as they do for marriage now. If everyone was subject to the same state recognition and legal status, there could be no discrimination on the basis of marital condition. Any law that referred to marriage would be changed to civil union. Marriage is a sacred union conferred by churches, and will carry no weight as far as civil rights. Civil unions are conferred by the state, and are the legal basis for decisions regarding family law.
And never the twain should meet.
And prcisely what is the problem with the term “civil marriage” already in law in 51 jurisdictions that it needs to be replaced with a new term “civil union” in order that gays may be civilly unionized under it (and what about gay believers? Can they have a religious marriage?)?
In addition to which, see any of the dozen or so threads where Magellan01 argued the point you’re making for in-depth refutation of why it wouldn’t work.
This “compromise” differs in no discernible way, AFAIAC, from a complete unconditional surrender.
How about “sacred union” is a sacred union conferred by churches, and will carry no weight as far as civil rights. Marriages are conferred by the state, and are the legal basis for decisions regarding family law. This has the benefit of not requiring any changes to the law or the language.
How are you being punished? AS I said up thread, the only time I can think of when you would actually have to use the word CU, is at the end of the year when you are filling out your tax returns.
Is that really so bad? Would the quality of you life take a nosedive because of it?
Yes, the history of the word marriage is very interesting. Thing is most people aren’t history scholars. The fact is, in this day and age, when one says married, others relate it to the religious. For the most part.
Besides that, I’m not letting anybody lay claim to the word. Let the people continue to have that philosophical debate. I was suggesting the word be precluded from the government so that the politicians stay out of it.
And let’s not kid ourselves, if we continue to allow politicians to have this debate. We know whose side they will be on.
Because the state has no authority to tell churches what to call their sacred rites. If they want to preserve traditional marriage as described in the bible, I say let them. But the state is under no legal obligation to recognize them, and may require civil unions for anyone wanting the protection of the law in civil matters.
You’ve put the cart before the horse. Why do people keep doing that? The word “marriage” is not in the Bible, only in translations of the Bible. It is an English word based on a Latin word which existed before the Bible was put into either of those languages. The government does not have the power to define church terminology, but it DOES have the power to define its own terms and let the churches react as they will. Which is in fact what’s going on.
My marriage was 100% secular, and it’s just as valid as anyone else’s until I travel internationally, at which point it starts swinging wildly between “marriage” and “nothing”.
A fundamentalist, anti-SSM Tea Partier I come into regular contact with told me that according to “that book I follow” when he got married he didn’t just get married, he created a covenant with God.
Well, I’m perfectly ok with consenting adults having marriages recognized by the state and the religious having marital covenants with God. In fact, I encourage it. Win-win.
I don’t think the person in question would go for that, but I thank him for inadvertently giving me the solution to the semantics.
This would be a lovely idea if the anti-SSM people were really motivated by the things the OP thinks they are, but they’re not. The fact that civil union laws (even ones which DON’T confer marriage-level rights) are protested just as hard as marriage equality should prove that. It’s not the word they object to, though that’s the claim of those who realize that they look like the 21st Century’s Bull Conners and Orval Faubuses, it’s the concept that two homosexuals can possibly have a relationship equal to theirs.
As long as non-bigots swallow the bigots’ facade because they want to believe the bigots are actually reasonable people underneath it all, we’ll get nowhere on rights.
There seem to be two separate proposals that are being conflated here, or, at least, people seem to be making one and getting responses that apply to the other:
- There should be no mechanism for two people to register their relationship with the State.
- The process of registering your relationship with the State, and the outcome of that process, should no longer be called “marriage”.
MaxTheVool discussed (1) two years ago, and I largely agree with that analysis, though I don’t think all of the famous 1100-odd rights attached to marriage (i.e., to relationships registered with the State) need to be. The OP seems to be about (2), which does seem to me to be conceding – needlessly and falsely – that marriage qua marriage is a purely religious thing, and complicating the whole thing in the process.
Christ on a fucking crutch, put on your big boy/girl panties and deal with a joke.
And actually, if nobody in the US has fucking noticed, you are NOT married until that little piece of paper that gets filed by everybody Justice of Peace, Elvis Imposter or Catholic priest fills out. Why yes, marriage in the US is actually a nonreligious activity that the state permits religious or nonreligious people to be allowed to perform. I challenge you to get married in the US without that little piece of nonreligious paperwork being filled out and filed.
Whoa, switch to decaf!
Caffeinist. “Decaf” is just as deserving of the label “coffee” as straight coffee is. Separate is not equal (and equal is not sugar). I will not rest until people are more concerned about the quality of coffee than whether it happens to contain caffeine. What two (or more) people do in the privacy of their own café is their business. I know people THINK coffee is a religious issue (I’m looking at you, Mormons), but it’s really a social issue that all societies practice, regardless of religion.
Yes, I drink diet coke, which isn’t “decaf” OR straight coffee. Who are you to judge my caffeinality or anyone else’s? I’m proud to live in a country where both caffeine and decaf, coffee and tea, soda and pop, are all treated as equal under the law.