A Practical Proposal on Gay Marriages

[Tom Rinaldo]

I am posting here on the "fighting" forum because I know this is a hot button issue. I think we should all become Pro Gay Weddings. I'm not being cute, I mean it. Gays and Lesbians should have the right to Wed and have Spouses. Personal data forms should read; single, Married/Wed, divorced etc. Greeting cards should be sold for Gay couples saying stuff like, "So you've been Wed for 25 years, how do you like having in-grown chains" or whatever other stupid jokes that cards for hetero straight marriages use.

Yes I am playing with language. Language is powerful. Yes Gays and Lesbians should have the right to Marry. But where the greater American culture is hung up now is on the definition of marriage being between a Man and a Woman. Words are potent, but on one important level it is becoming a matter of semantics. Of course I know that that doesn't even begin to cover the homophobia involved in the opposition to Gay and Lesbian Marriages, but it is the symbol the right has latched onto: "I believe Marriage is between a Man and a Woman" and it is where we lose people of otherwise good will on this issue.

It sucks that Gay and Lesbian couples have been forced, where it is available, to describe their committed sacred relationships as "Civil Unions" and "Domestic Partnerships". The very words are an insult. The concept of Wedding someone and being Wed, however, has deep and powerful traditional roots. Words evolve over time. At one point Gay usually meant joyful. "Being Wed" is a powerful evocation, almost as powerful as "being Married", certainly more powerful than "in a Civil Union". I suggest we formalize the word 'Wed". I suggest that we start a movement to have local governments issue Wedding licenses, that allow Gay and Lesbian couples to become legally Wed. Being Wed should be 100% equivalent legally to being Married, with exactly the same rights.

I suggest that until people evolve a little further on the hot button word "Marriage" that we by pass it and essentially make being Married a semantic sub set of the category "Legally Wed", with Marriage (hopefully temporarily) defined as the Wedding of a Man and Woman.

Again I am "playing" with words but we can within the larger culture build on the powerful traditional associations linked to the concept of "Wedding" both as a noun and as a verb, and raise that term to the legal, social, and spiritual, equivalent of a marriage. We already have separate words to describe Hetero and Homo sexually oriented individuals, it is not intrinsically more than a semantic issue to have a word that is defined as the union of heterosexually oriented individuals (marriage). Much of the problem is that we have very unequal separate terminologies. Straights get to inherit the cultural and spiritual mantle of history by being getting married, while Gays and Lesbians (hopefully) have to settle for recording their relationship at City Hall to trigger specific legal rights.

As the next step in our cultural evolution, I respectfully suggest that it is time for America to recognize the right of Gays and Lesbians to become legally Wed. I think we can quickly achieve the day where a Gay or Lesbian can causally say, "Oh, we've been Wed for three years now. My spouse loves to cook, why don't you come by for dinner some night?" It could be legally recognized everywhere, and it gets right past all the constitutional amendments against Gay marriage being passed on the State or National level.

[AP]

1. I say the opposite. Give the word "marriage" to the churches and the words

"civil unions" to the government.

Render onto Caesar what is Caesar's and onto god what is god's.

Churches can mediate people's spiritual relationships and governments can mediate people's legal relationships.

[enki23]

2. that's how it *should* be.

but we couldn't make it that way even if democrats controlled every branch of government.

[AP]

3. Yes we could. In small steps.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. I think of this as one of those "small steps"

While I agree with you about the relative roles of State and Church, linking the Gay Marriage issue with anything remotely related to the separation of Church and State issue doesn't seem helpful to us at the moment, IMO.

I was envisioning a grass roots movement to have towns and cities like New Paltz NY and San Francisco CA pass/amend their Civil Union/Domestic Partnership statutes to recognize G/L couples as "Legally Wed". After that has perked up enough, States could pass legislation granting full partnership rights to "Legally Wed Gay and Lesbian Couples" etc.

[LibertyLover]

5. Words have meaning

I firmly believe that legal marriages should only be performed by the states. Every marriage, gay or straight, should be a civil union. If you want a religious ceremony afterwards, fine, but you have to be legally married by the secular state government first. Take marriage away from the church.