So France has legalized gay marriage.
It’s obviously a a big topic here in the USA as well.
Would the issue be as big if there was a legal status of Domestic Partner that companies had to adhere to in regards to benefits; and if Domestic Partner status was a valid status for filing jointly on income taxes?
To take it a step further; why not allow three people to get married? In other words; why draw the line at same sex marriage?
Legalizing additional kinds of two-person marriage is relatively simple, structurally; in Ontario, it involved things like changing the names on the marriage-license application from “husband” and “wife” to “applicant” and “joint applicant”, but the whole system remained otherwise the same.
Legalizing marriages with more than two people invites greater complexity. If A is married to both B and C, are B and C married to each other in any way? What if A dies? If B wants to exit the marriage, does only A have to negotiate, or does C get a say? What if A owns a house–does B get some sort of share of the value upon exit? Would A have to buy B out?
I suspect there will be different ways and different choices. Some marriages may be fully-equal partnerships. Some may be relationships centred on one founder. Some may have different degrees of partnership.
This all implies that, to handle marriages with more than two people, family law needs to be expanded and made more flexible in a way that it didn’t need to be to handle same-sex marriage.
I support this; I think that marriages of any size should be legal. But I’m also aware that a lot of technical groundwork will need to be done to support such legalization.
In countries that have legalized gay marriages have their been any large follow-up campaigns to legalize marriages of more than two people?
For the first question - yes, it would be.
There are a couple thousand benefits that are gained simply by the act of marriage. It’s far more than just insurance and taxes. Until each and every one of those is included with a DP as well, then they’re not equal.
Until other countries recognize Domestic Partner same as a marriage, ditto.
And until you can GUARANTEE that the laws will never be tweaked to make a Domestic Partnership different in any way from a marriage, those rights will never be safe.
Which is why the Domestic Partnership / Civil Union / Separate but Unequal variations have been rejected.
Put more simply: having marriages mean any number of persons would transform the legalities of the institution fundamentally, whereas extending the meaning from “a man and a woman” to “two adult persons” doesn’t. Moreover, there is as of now no strong social imperative for such a change.
As for having “domestic partner” status, why complicate stuff by having two terms that mean the same thing legally?
In short, the path of simplicity points to “marriage” = “two adults”. If there was some compelling reason to complicate this, it could of course be changed.
I had to read on to figure out the context of DP in this thread.
Whew… Never mind…
I know exactly what you mean-I thought it meant duck penis too.
So the OP raised two specific issues: marriage vs. domestic partnership, and marriages with more than 2 people.
I am only interested in the first topic, so I will speak to that. Personally, I would be satisfied with legal domestic partnership that was indistinguishable in everything but name from legal marriage. Same tax rules, same divorce rules (would we have to have a different name for “divorce” too?), same visitation rights in the hospital, same inheritance rights to social security and pensions, etc. Same everything. I’m all about the practical side, not about the image. I am not interested in a religious ceremony, I am interested in protecting my family, and in protecting our combined assets when one of us goes first. But if you are going to offer an equivalent institution, why not just call it marriage and be done with it? That would greatly simplify things, I think.
What I think is funny, to all those who say that “marriage” should be reserved, as a sort of sacred thing, for opposite-sex couples, and that gays should be satisfied with what is often described as “marriage lite” that is offered to them as a consolation, is how many hetero couples choose marriage lite over full marriage. So we have the attempt to protect the status of marriage backfiring, making marriage less desirable than it was before.
To me it’s just a laughably transparent rear-guard action against change, and against the perceived devaluation of the institution of marriage by having icky gay people do it too.
Roddy
One day I would like a SSM opponent to tell me how their marriage is any different once gay people can get married. So far no one ever has. Maybe Enright3 will be the one? Probably not.
Question for the OP: How is your thread different from the two threads currently active in this forum on those two topics?
Yes. This is all about bigotry and nothing else; and adding “Domestic Partner status” won’t magically reduce the number of bigots. And the only reason for such a “Domestic Partner” status to exist in the first place, just like a “Civil Union”, would be to create something inferior to marriage. A ghetto version of marriage that exists as a attempt to write bigotry into law, and as an insult to same sex couples.
I am not going to pretend that I understand the motives of the OP in raising the two issues together, but I can tell you that this si a common tactic of opponents of SSM. I did not say the OP is against SSM.
T
States with DP laws have them as a step to equality. They were established when SSM was impossible, and had the advantage of being open to hetero couples also. Given that SSM is now possible in many states, it seems a better alternative. And I’m unaware of anyone in a position of power who opposes SSM to keep the term marriage referring to OSM proposing fully equal DPs as mentioned in the OP.
As for marriages with more than two partners, we have plenty of examples of this in Islamic countries. It is not like we’d be starting from scratch. That’s not to support them, but we needn’t be so insular.
Without looking at those thread, I’m guessing not at all. I didn’t do a good job of searching; plus I wanted to also ask the question of 3 or more people getting married.
Are you saying I’m a same sex opponent? I’m not sure where that is coming from. What’s even funnier is that my wife and I have been asked by a close friend of mine and her girlfriend to stand up with them as best man & bride’s maid at their union ceremony. I guess you weren’t as perceptive as you thought.
My state (Georgia) doesn’t have DP laws (as far as I know); but my company is one that offers DP benefits. I was recently surprised to find that while two non-married adults can be on a health insurance policy; it’s still not the same. Evidently you get screwed in taxes. Still, for the two couples I know who are taking advantage of the benefit; it’s still a better deal. 1 a hetero couple where the girlfriend’s job is contract labor, thus really expensive benefits, and 2 a gay couple where one is going to school full time. In both cases DP benefits are helpful; but definitely not equal.
There’s not really a motive. I had some free time at work; and I was thinking about a recent discussion I had with a friend of mine; and just decided to blurt it out here on the boards. If I had any motive, it’s that I’ve been on these boards since longer than most people; yet I rarely, if ever, post to Great Debates or The Pit. I thought it would be a quick and easy topic that I was interested in knowing more about; trying to fight my own prejudices; etc.
You are correct; I pay through the nose so that my partner can be included on my company health insurance (since he has none of his own, being self-employed). This is one of the things that would have to be equalized for me to accept Domestic Partnership as a valid alternative to marriage.
This is not to say that Der Trihs and others are not correct when they say that current DP and Civil Union options are institutionalized, separate-but-not-equal bigotry. They probably are; but other peoples’ bigotry is not of as much interest to me as the more practical aspects. Maybe it should be. As it is, events are moving much faster than I ever dared hope. If DOMA and California’s prop 8 are struck down, I would get married the next day, just so my partner could have my social security, if I get hit by a bus.
If he’ll have me, that is. 
Roddy
I don’t think that helps much. The various forms of polygamy in Islamic majority countries based on Islamic law would not pass muster in the U.S. Whereas SSM assumes that gender is not as important as the nature of the relationship, Islamic (and fundamentalist Mormon) polygamy assumes that marriage is the subjugation of the woman to the man. The number of women subjugated is not that vital.
I’m not judging his motives. I just want to know why we need another thread on this when we have 2 active ones already.