[TallGuyNW]

Was thinking about gay marraige today... It's something I completely support, but I'm not much of a religious person. I see the issue as a great example of why we shouldn't be merging church with state. We all know the issues and how polarizing the debate is. However, a thought crossed my mind that could be a potential solution... Separate church and state! Wow - what a concept. The government should *only* participate in Civil Unions, or whatever you want to call them. Straight and gay couples would be able to get a Civil Union and this comes with the current government benefits of marraige - rights of survivorship, tax benefits, end-of-life decisions, etc; things that are not available in the majority of states to gay partners. Nothing religious is implied. Then, for those couples who choose it, straight or gay, "marraige" is something you do for your own religious purposes at your church, temple, etc.

There is no "redefining marraige" from a religious perspective. People who are now strongly against gay marraige shouldn't have objections to gay civil unions on religious grounds because these civil unions have nothing to do with religion, and it's the exact same civil union that straight couples would receive.

Would it work? Thoughts?

[pixelsaurus]

This is no longer an issue in NZ Civil union in New Zealand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Jonathan Mac]

I'm married and I don't believe that gay marriage will affect, or redefine, mine in any way whatsoever. How could it? My marriage is defined by the relationship which forms it.

Homosexuals should have exactly the same rights as heterosexuals.

[SpecialK]

Doesn't matter if it's a religious issue or not. The religious right will think it is their business.

[jac]

I haven't performed a homosexual marriage as yet; the marriages over which I've presided have all been heterosexual. But, if asked, I would be only too happy to bring to people together in the union of their choice. And in Canadian law, the couple would have all of the enshrined rights of any other marriage. Works for me.

[Ratmagiclady]

This idea, "IF LGBTs can have what straights take for granted, why not do away with it entirely?" ..is a longstanding canard of anti-LGBT people.


Civil marriage is civil marriage. *Religious* marriage, contrary to what some Christians will tell you, is not limited to anti-gay Christian sects, Christians, monotheists, or any other religions on the basis of some versions of those religions being anti-gay.


'Separate but equal' is neither, really. If you want 'civil marriage' to not exist, ensure it's *equal* for all people and all religions, and *then* see if anyone wants to do without.

The only people 'confused' about the legalities are people using certain brands of certain religions to enforce inequality not only over LGBT people, but also over other churches. Actually 'destroying' civil marriage won't help any of that.

Ever heard of 'Common Law' marriage? Hrm?


And, no, it's not a new idea for someone to pull out of nowhere.

Civil marriage is civil marriage. Allowing so-certified clergy to witness a marriage license during a ceremony, religious or otherwise is a *courtesy,* nothing more. Certainly no excuse to claim only anti-gay Christians can perform marriages, and then only for straight people.. Never mind for them to claim they're 'religiously oppressed' if people they don't approve of can go to City Hall like they can at will. Then claim they're being robbed of something if my sweetie and I are civilly-married like equal citizens of the United States in a nice circle handfasting. Right there before the Gods and or community.


Seriously. I *am* clergy. The idea there's some conflict between civil marriage equality and 'religious freedom' or 'definitions of marriage' is *BS.* I can refuse to perform a ceremony for any reason, no matter how trivial, including, 'I don't feel like it right now.' ...What I *can't* and *shouldn't* be able to do is deny a class of people the right to go elsewhere. And be treated as citizens.


This has always been how the law has always been. Even when I could marry straight couples and not be civilly-married myself. It's nonsense. Despite millions spent to try and confuse the issue by certain churches, it was *never* that complicated. Really. It. Just. Isn't. Never was. This is about civil equality. In a civil contract.

Religious guidance and blessings, as always, *optional.*

If you want to have Americans vote ourselves away *all* civil marriage rights, well, that's a taller order than you may think. (You might want to look at just how much you're taking fro granted) Wait till we're all equal and see how that goes over.

[Ratmagiclady]

And all that's apart from a disinformed electorate thinking some theoretical 'separate but equal' 'civil unions' actually *exist,* even when they're induced on that basis to vote for anti-equality laws that explicitly *outlaw* any such *thing* as *any* form of civil union for LGBT people.


87 percent of Americans seem to think LGBT people are *already* protected in state and Federal law against overt and explicit discrimination. On basic things like jobs and housing.

It's actually not so, not that it's in my best interest to advertise the fact. I live in a state where my landlord could say, 'You're not straight, out with you because you're not straight.' Any minute. Totally legal. And I live alone. Cause I can't be with my sweetie, cause of very real civil laws and economics.

How invested do you think I am in my community right now?

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Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 11-21-2012 at 05:41 PM.

[Ash]

Same issues being discussed in Australia
The redefinition of marriage is such that it has to allow for a union between two people, not just between a man and a woman, in the law, as it currently is.
That is the challenge to get through parliament.

[Ex Finn.]

My adopted home-state is filled with diverse and accommodating people with open minds. Maryland Question 6 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hey, live and let live.

[Ash]

In Australia, the Canberra declaration asserts that in trying to change the definition of marriage in the Marriage Act: “…the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life”, we could be affecting the social utility of a stable and exclusive relationship between one husband and one wife. I don't see such a redefinition as affecting the choice for a man to marry a woman or existing marriages. But there's the sociodemographic argument that:

"No other social institution has done so much good for people and for nations. Lifelong marriage between a man and a woman guarantees children their biological birthright to a mother and a father and provides better protection, education, welfare, support and nurture. No other arrangement has improved upon the benefits of marriage."

[Ratmagiclady]

Whatever you think you're talking about in Australia, Ash.


Tell that to my stepdaughter. Or tell me it's not about civil rights after *my* life.

In America, the Christians cite statistics of couples not broken up, compare them to single parent situations, then claim 'This is cause it's a 'man and woman,' therefore LGBT couples who actually have better outcomes despite adversity, should be denied rights on the basis they should be considered like single parents, as basis to *demand* they be treated as single parents, if not break up their homes to *make* them single parents.'

How's that make sense?

Do you understand your 'man and woman' BS is cause the Christians compare intact straight couples to broken straight families and then claim gays must be like broken straight couples, thus should be broken up by all possible means?

[magkelly]

Kids don't need a marriage license to lay claim to their parents anymore. If there is a conflict all they need is a lawyer and a DNA test to satisfy the law, and anyway when has a marriage license ever automatically ensured that any parent will be a good one, will actually support their kids? People walk out of hetero marriages every day, abandon their spouses and their children. Gay people will likely do the same. They'll marry, divorce, have custody battles just like straight people do. It's no different really and that's the point. Gay people are just people, and they should have the same legal right to marry as anyone else.

Personally even if I wasn't irreligious I wouldn't go to any church that did discriminate against 2 gay adults marrying legally. Whether or not they want to perform religious ceremonies for gays that's up to them. I believe that forcing them is wrong, and for me that's where religion and the state do divide IMHO, but this whole business of denying gays a fully legal court sanctioned marriage under the law because of tradition and religion is frankly BULL.

There are two types of marriage. The legal contract of marriage and the sacrament of marriage. Usually under the law ministers have the right to conduct a ceremony both but that doesn't mean you can't just go to the courthouse to get married. A church ceremony is just not necessary. It's something people like to do but you're just as married if you go to the clerk of the court and do it before a judge.

Laws change with the times, and thank goodness, or we'd likely all be thrown in the pokey every time we had certain kinds of sex that are now common enough acts but that were once illegal. Or when we used birth control which was also once illegal. There was a time when getting too loose on a Saturday night and walking home could get you busted and put in jail. So could french kissing your SO at a train station or at the movies. So could a brown skinned person marrying a light beige skinned person. There are thousands of absurd laws that are still on the books today that are "traditional" for their times that make no sense at all in terms of who we are today.

Wanting to be married is perfectly normal for gay people. As normal as it is for straight people. Gay people have a right to that kind of legal protection for themselves, for their kids, for their property, to be married under the law and in any church that will perform a religious ceremony for them if they so wish. In this day and age with half of all marriages ending in divorce you'd think that gay people actually wanting to get married would be celebrated by those who still support the institution. Marriage rates among straight people have actually dropped quite a bit.

Marriage is just not the priority it once was and more and more people are waiting to go there, if they ever do. Kids or no kids, they're not exactly rushing to church or to a judge like they used to. Having kids out of wedlock is no big deal anymore and the legal issues of getting married can actually make it seem less attractive to people, period.

I've seen first hand the aftermath of divorce several times over in my family. I still have respect for the institution but I'm not likely to sign on the dotted line myself anytime soon. I could meet the most amazing man in the world tomorrow and fall madly and he'd still likely have to practically drag me to the judge if he actually wanted me there. My Dad would not be happy with that. He hates it when his kids live with people. He's still old fashioned that way. But I still think I'd rather live with his disapproval than actually get married, and no, having a child would not change that, though that's not likely either.

Things have changed a lot over the past few decades. Marriage is still seen as a lovely thing but it's not exclusive to straight religious people and no one really cares if a kid's parents have different last names now unless they're ultra religious or something. The fact that the majority of the people of this country who voted did so for maintaining abortion rights, for gay people marrying, for legal pot even in some states, that says a lot about where mainstream thought is going these days. The ultra religious can howl all they like about the "desecration of marriage" but more of us than not simply don't care much for their opinion anymore. Being fair and humane is simply more important to us than being "right with God" all the time. Anyway, if that's who "God" is a jealous, judgmental, wrathful deity who would deny gays the right to love let alone marry, choose one people over all others, take sides in war, blah, blah, blah, well then who needs him, his holy books, his chosen people, his sacred rites et all? That's just not my idea of a loving creator and in the holy books he's not just a god of love but also a god of vengeance, of judgement, of jealousy, of favoritism, et all. That's not a God. To use Trek terminology. That's a tantrum throwing, wanna be omnipotent Q type being simply masquerading as a God.

As a species human beings most of us are trying to grow up past all that I think. Not all but most. Even in the Christian church you have theologians writing about how Christianity must change or die and the same is true of most of the major religions. It's time they all grew up. God too for that matter. It's just not 2000 years ago and many so called moral laws that were written for life than most of them just simply don't work anymore. We call know it and we tacitly acknowledge it every time we do something those old holy laws used to say was wrong. We all think that not eating certain things or not touching your wife when she's on her period is probably not very necessary anymore. Most of us think it's uncivilized to own other people.

In my mind people who pick and choose things to support only those old laws and customs that they still want to support while ignoring the 100 other things that they do all the time that their ancestors were not supposed to do are total hypocrites. Gay marriage doesn't take one thing away from the institution of marriage as I see it. In fact I think it just may save marriage as a custom if things go on the way they have been the past decade or two. Better someone gets married than no one at all, right?

[jac]

Our former Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, once famously quipped that "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation". I always liked the man.

[Ratmagiclady]

Our former Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, once famously quipped that "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation". I always liked the man.

Out of our bedrooms should be obvious by now to the anti-equality people. What the *law* is about in nuts and bolts and dollars to feed your kid with and otherwise daily life, you need to raise a kid to know. Especially under the Christians' fire.

People think they're all 'tolerant' saying 'I don't care what happens in your bedroom,' and no, it's none of your business.


Bedroom.

All along we've been talking about the *roof.* And the kitchen. Dammit.


I, and my families, past and present, is *not* about what happens 'in my bedroom.' Nothing happens in my bedroom. I can't keep my bedroom warm or cool enough to be habitable, and the person I want to marry is grieving a friend alone over a thousand miles away. In a state that was just turned down trying to deny us our civil rights forever, while down here I'm seeing if any of us have means to try and get together for a bit of an exhausted sort of Thanksgiving.

Bedroom. My. Goddess. Do you really think this is about what you think about someone else having *sex?* Or 'Not caring' about the same thing that you think somehow defines other people's lives as citizens and *human beings?*

No. This is *life.* Dammit. Civil. Life. as Human. Beings.

Ash may proclaim his 'belief' in 'lust' and 'defintions' and all, but what he really can't face is me, and my sweetie. I'm in chronic pain all the time. And even when sweetie and I are together, I camp out on a sofa till some of the worst sleep interruptions pass. How much 'sin' does he think we're even up to? Especially since we can't be together now? It's all these phobes who think we're defined by *sex* when in reality, we're just trying to live. And, yes, be secure in our persons and property like straight people take for granted.

Like American citizens.



So, no. It's not *about* my bedroom. It's about my *house.* Get it?

[Ash]

Even in the Christian church you have theologians writing about how Christianity must change or die and the same is true of most of the major religions.

Good points magkelly, and this one in particular is interesting. But although the Christian church changes, the Bible (and therefore the God and His commandments) does not (Hebrews 13:8)

Our former Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, once famously quipped that "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation". I always liked the man.

Comical, but a sober conjecture. I Like!