President Bush has said marriage is a union between a man and a woman.
Okay then.
It’s just a matter of semantics.
We’ll take marriage.
How about we come up with another word for gay unions? Coupling? Fusion? (I like that one myself.) Garriage? (Gay Marriage, although it sounds like how the British pronounce “garage.”
The new term will still have all the rights, responsibilities, and privileges of marriage, it will just be called something else.
Please know, I am not trivializing the issue. I am simply trying to trump those ultra-conservatives who keep trumpeting “Marriage is between a man and a woman.”
I’m with JuanitaTech. Anything other than marriage smacks of seperate but equal. This is in the legal sense. Don’t know about the religious sense, though, as I’m not big on that sort of thing.
More ups for gays having marriages too. I don’t want any special rights or terms. If they can’t have a “marriage,” then I want my union (or whatever) to be called something else too.
I second rockle’s motion. Inasmuch as a lot of the opposition to gay marriage at least professes to be religiously justified, and marriage was a religious sacrament before it was a civil legal status, I propose that the legal status of all “domestic partners”, hetero or homo, be “Civil Union.” Those who are married as a religious sacrament of a religion that accepts their particular partnership may refer to that union as a marriage.
The general public would be as unlikely to adhere to this usage as they are to ask for “Cola” in a restaurant instead of “Coke”, but it could easily become the standard legal usage, and thus provide a useful bridge until society works out its “issues”.
You know what, I am so tired of all the homophobic bullshite that the debate over “marriage” attracts (mostly in the name of “journalistic balance”), that I am willing to accept “marriage by another name”, if only to shut that effing annoying little Shrub up.
But aren’t marriages preformed by a Justice of the Peace called that too? No wonder they’d want something different. Seems cruel to call it that too when it currently doesn’t have the same legality.
Yes, let’s do that, let’s also have a different term for when someone with ginger hair gets married (gingerriage), and another term for when one or both of the prospective spouses are left-handed (leftriage), you folks with freckles - don’t imagine you’ve escaped this, you’ll have to call your union “frecklliage”, people allergic to shellfish will have to call their relationship crustacophobbiage and anyone who combs their hair from the middle will have to enter into Centreparttiage.
When one of them is Jewish, we’ll call it Jewwiage, oops, hello Mr Godwin.
On second thoughts, let’s not do any of it, including the absurd idea of treating gays as if they were something to be held at arm’s length with the other hand pinching the nose.
Not that I know of. I was married not even by a JP, but by the freakin’ “Family Court Commissioner,” and the certificate he gave us says “marriage license.” I think you are thinking of the term “civil ceremony,” used to distinguish a marriage performed by a public official from a religious ceremony.
Thinking on the deeper matter (and very much considering two women I know I who may well be contemplating marriage), I support those who are fighting for full rights to marriage by that name. But I think if I were in that position myself, I’d feel that they could call it “jumpin’ de broom” for all I care, as long as it meant that my partner and I could provide insurance for each other, make medical decisions, be recognized as the legal parents of our children, etc., etc., rights that gay couples do not (generally) currently have. It would be a small step and a large one at the same time, and would open the door for acceptance of the term “marriage” later on. YMMV.
I’m not gay, and I’m not married. But I just can’t figure out why it matters to some people if two men or two women marry each other. I mean, what are they afraid of? “Tim and Jerry just got married! Oh, my god! That means that we’re all going to turn gay!”?
