Funny enough to deserve its own quote box.
As others have pointed out, a great many anti-SSM people would strenuously protest the OP’s argument. Most anti-SSM bigots want to deny gay people all of rights that even approximate the rights given by marriage. Although some states are moving towards gay marriage or civil unions (that are separate and not equal), there are also quite a few states that have not only banned gay marriage, they have also taken steps to ban even unequal civil unions, and even banning gay people from privately making their own legal arrangements that are even vaguely similar to marriage.
So the OP’s proposal would please almost no one. It “wrecks” the word marriage for many people, adding fuel to the anti-SSM fire who claim that gays are out to destroy marriage. It wrongly concedes the word marriage to the Religious Right, who has no valid claim on “owning” what that word means. Marriage was around long before Christianity got involved in it. Many gay and/or atheist people would want to be married, without having to have a second and unnecessary ceremony and expense, just to placate the bigots (who still wouldn’t be happy with it). Most people who are anti-SSM are so not just because of the word “marriage”, but because they want to disallow gays from having any of the rights that marriage entails.
I think it’s funny that some people who are in favor of the OP’s position say that others who are pro-gay marriage are “just arguing over semantics”. Well, if it’s really just semantics and therefore unimportant, then I think it would be better to be on the right side of history and piss off the bigots, rather than affecting everyone else who wants to get married, and also having to undergo the huge hassel and legal expense changing all the legislation and regulations surrounding marriage (to be legal, they’d all have to be changed individually, and make sure you don’t forget any).
It’s more likely that they’ll lose what rights they already have in the massive backlash.
Which don’t matter since they aren’t real marriages. Only a marriage by the state is real. Again; a churches opinion only matters to the members of that church, and is meaningless to outsiders.
Rights which would be less than what marriage now affords, and come at the price of a massive backlash against homosexuals. They’d be less worried about marriage than they would be about not getting beaten to death.
If the name doesn’t matter, why are we changing the name in the first place?
In my hypothetical, civil union affords all the rights as marriage, under the protection of law. Do not be constrained from imagining what could be, by what is now.
As I already pointed out, just calling it a “civil union” means it is going to have far less legal recognition across the world. The word marriage has a legal meaning; by calling what we have civil unions, we’re declaring them to not be marriages. That after all is the point of calling them something else.
I doubt that it would be any different than what we have now. Do you really think gay marriages that are legal in the US receive the same level of acceptance in Saudi Arabia? If foreign countries don’t want to respect gay unions of any kind, teminology really isn’t gooing to change that.
I didn’t say “gay marriage”, I said “civil unions”. Partners of the opposite sex won’t be recognized as married either*. And in fact that is what it’s like now; civil unions don’t travel like marriages do.
*Probably not even by each other. That’s the point of calling it a civil union after all; to rub people’s face in the fact they aren’t allowed to be married.
Legal gay marriages don’t travel well.
And under the “make them all civil unions” plan, nobody’s “marriage” will travel well. Making a problem worse isn’t a solution.
Have you circumnavigated the world recently? 
Seriously, this is precisely t5he concept advanced by Magellan91 (except for the all non-religious marriages are civil unions aspect). And it is trivially easy (though requiring a lot of typing) that even if you start with that guarantee of equality written into law, that equality can be eroded step by step, by adding exception after exception to the guarantee or by adopting a ‘Notwithstanding any other section of law…’ provision.
And I ask again, all legally recognized marriages today, straight or gay, celebrated by Pope, judge, or Elvis impersonator, polyprogenative or childless, passionate love match or cold eyes-wide-open mutual benefit pact, spouses of the same or wildly disparate ages – they’re all civil marriages. Why go to all the hassle of legally changing the name in tens of thousands of statute laws, regulations, and forms? What benefit is it to anybody (except the bigots who get to ‘protect marriage’ from the rest of us)?
I don’t want my marriage to be known as a civil union. To me, civil union implies a contractual relationship with another person–like a partner in a business. It doesn’t imply a lifelong emotional connection with another person.
It’s like the difference between legal guardian and parent. A legal guardian may have no emotional connection with the child and their relationship may end at 18. A parent implies a person with a lifelong emotional connection with the child.
Everyone already knows what marriage means. Everyone who is married wants to say they are married, regardless of whether they were joined in a church or the courthouse. If the Catholic Church wants to come up with a trademarked term which means the joined couple fulfilled all the biblical requirements for marriage, more power to them.
Actually, the church should come up with a new word. Regardless of SSM, many people call themselves married even though they don’t follow the ideals of a biblical marriage. Some people have open marriages, lots of people don’t believe in Christianity nor raise their children in a religious manner. I would think religious people would want a special word that means they are married in accordance with biblical standards so that their relationship is not confused with the secular understanding of marriage.
No, you’re being discriminated against by reality because you don’t believe in mythology.
Wait, what? I don’t think that’s true at all. Certainly not in my experience. Some weddings I’ve been to have taken place in churches (my family is Catholic, although I’m most decidedly not), but at least as many - especially lately, as my friends have been getting married - have taken place in non-religious settings, by marriage celebrants. I don’t relate to a marriage, or even the act of getting married, as a religious thing at all. It’s a ceremony, and a commitment. I would never think of a marriage as primarily a religious thing.
Although this explains my genuine confusion at an exchange earlier in the thread when Miller asked:
He didn’t say he wanted god’s blessing, he said he wanted to get married. One doesn’t have to have anything to do with the other.
Churches seem to forget that their ceremonies “join two people in HOLY MATRIMONY” so they already have their own term.
Personally, I think they should just create Merger Kiosks.
If you want to create a merger with someone, you walk up, provide two hair samples and identifying info. If the DNA isn’t for siblings, then you get an email and downloadable merger certificate good for all things tax, benifits, etc.
If you want to cancel a merger with someone, you walk up, enter your merger ID and the machine randomly exterminates one of the two people standing next to it. With a 50/50 shot at survival, that will make people think long and hard before they get a merger or terminate one.
I thought of this exact same concept when I was in 8th grade.
I am gay, and don’t find the idea of declaring all marriages some type of civil union offensive at all. Not only will this law allow all citizens equal rights in regards to marital benefits, but it directly shows that America is not a Christian nation - there is an extreme difference between Church and State.
I’m only 21, so I am certainly not considering marriage in the near future. However, I do tire of the hypocrisy posed by those who say they are “protecting the American ideal of family”. I think a lot of older people (35+) don’t put in my generation’s thoughts and ideals about the world at large. The idea that every woman’s dream in life being married is certainly dead by now. Premarital sex is a given for any and every relationship I’ve heard of from peers, gay or straight. I’m just saying, marriage is no longer the process it was created for anymore.
Marriage was not created for “the American ideal of family.” Neither was it created to prevent premarital sex. You’re swallowing the entire right-wing story.
Furthermore I find it rich for people who say that they have no interest or stake in getting married to tell people who want a civil marriage that they should be satisfied with a civil union. As a supporter of same sex marriage I would nevertheless throw gay couples under the bus if they think it is an acceptable compromise for me to surrender the term “marriage” to religious organizations.
Here’s a quote from John Adams, a founding father who wrote the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796 “The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion” (Article 11 -Top Cash Earning Games in India 2023 | Best Online Games to earn real money)
I’m not saying that marriage was created for America at all. I don’t see how that would make it a right wing story, either. I think the concept of marriage, partnerships, whatever were created solely for the purpose of survival in the ancient world. And why is this a problem if a ‘marriage’ can be declared one for either type of couple, gay or straight, by whatever religious affliation you abide to. The point of this forum is the idea of creating all marriages, civil unions for benefit purposes. If you want a marriage before god, go to your church, not the courthouse.