The government should only recognize civil unions

[donheld]

Civil Unions should be what the government recognizes. A contract between two people to join together in a union. If the couple, gay, straight, ducks, whatever, want the church and religion, involved that's their business. The government should have NOTHING to do with ANY religious aspect of marriage. EVER.

[Behind the Aegis]

1. You think that will change anytime soon?

[Ohio Joe]

2. Just a straight mans opinion but I don't think that works...

The way I see it, it does not matter what the govt. calls it. The goal here is equality and as long as it is anything other then the most common term, it is not equality.

[donheld]

3. Why is it not equality if the government has NOTHING to do with

the religious aspect of marriage for anyone?

[noamnety]

5. Marriage is already not a religious thing.

A church can opt to bless a marriage but the blessing without the civil stuff is not recognized as a marriage.

The civil stuff without any religion constitutes a marriage.

Sort of like death - the state recognizes it and issues death certificates. A church can opt to do a religious ceremony to acknowledge it - or not. Or like birth, the state does the birth certificates regardless of if a church opts to do some kind of baptism ceremony.

(I really hate these arguments based on the concept that if those pesky gays insist on getting "married" - we can fix it by just changing all the language in our laws so they can't be considered "married.")

[damntexdem]

8. Well, actually death is death, whether or not recognized by state or church.

However, the civil union issue is that marriage is often seen as a religious thing, so that the state should not be involved in it. Actually, marriage was a community thing before religions took it over; but that is also beside the point.

The basic point is that universal civil union recognition would be so difficult that marriage equality, as difficult as that will be to achieve, is actually more likely to occur.

[damntexdem]

7. If every jurisdiction had civil unions for everyone, it would be equality.

Unfortunately, marriage equality is more feasible than universal civil unions. At the very least, marriage equality will need to come first.

[Ohio Joe]

10. But the terminology will never change

The laws changing to be equal for everyone would be a mighty step, I'm all for anything that will get to that but... It seems to me that if on one side it is still called marriage and the other not... it is almost like "seperate but equal".

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, its just how it feels to me.

[Luminous Animal]

4. Not this again. (sigh)

Marriages already are civil unions. The state does not recognize a marriage performed by anyone, whether clergy or clerk or judge, without first sanctioning the ability of that person to represent the state. That marriage document, which is witnessed, is an official civil document.

[damntexdem]

9. Yeah, but it's called a certificate of marriage, marriage license, or marriage whatever.

What we need to do is get over the concept that religion owns marriage.

[Gwendolyn]

12. It doesn't.

The government owns marriage.

You're under the mistaken impression that inventing some new institution will dispel bigotry. It won't. In Canada, gay people can be licensed and married by the government, or licensed by the government and then have it officiated by some religious body. This is an example of how little difference it makes in allowing religious institutions an involvement in the marriage process.

On the other hand, in many countries where GAY PEOPLE CANNOT BE MARRIED, you DO have this civil union/marriage of which you speak for heterosexuals. Please see France and UK for examples. That should be proof enough that the civil union idea doesn't wash and won't change a thing.

Bigoted people do not want to share an umbrella "unionizing thing" with gay people. That's why it's called bigotry. Capiche?

[damntexdem]

6. I agree. However, that won't work with states.

The issue is that if one state adopts such an approach, there will be issues of recognition by other states and by the feds. So, unless there were federal legislation that assured full federal recognition and required that all states accept civil unions from another state as the legal equivalent of their own marriage or civil-unions status, those civil-unioned in that state would run into problems.

The best approach is to work for marriage equality everywhere -- then try to switch to 'civil union' in place of marriage, starting at the federal level.

[Luminous Animal]

11. Why switch at all given that legal marriage is already a civil union?