Just call it marriage and have "civil unions". If its done at the state level (which I'm USUALLY a proponent for legislation for on the state level), then we're going to end up with a situation that every state has different structure of unions. I'm with Palin on this one.
If a man and woman get married in Illinois, they are recognized as married in California. How do you expect states to recognize civil unions if they all have their own version?
nationalize it all. Just call it marriage for heterosexuals and civil unions for homosexuals. same benefits, same shit. everyone should be satisfied. all benefits are the same and the traditional church fucks won't whine about marriage being changed so drastically.
If a woman wants to marry a woman, then they're married. They aren't civilly unionized. They are married.
The problem with civil unions where I live is, some companies still refuse to give out benefits to same-sex couples, because the civil union law did not require companies to designate same-sex couples as spouses. I know weird. I think there should be a referendum in all 50 states. If they want it, they can have it. If they don't, they don't have to have it. Give full faith and credit to couples who are married in another state, and let's move on to more pressing issues.
Just call it a civil union. same benefits. Marriage = one man one woman Civil Union = two men or two women Again, same benefits and everything, same governing laws. Its just a matter of sematics. Throughout history, marriage has always been with one man and one woman.
Again, if they nationalize the terms and definitions, then we wouldn't have this problem. They should nationalize civil unions and I think that would probably satisfy most of the pro-"marriage is traditional" peeps out there.
Common Law Marriage by definition is two people living together as married; there's all kinds of common laws regarding it. Seems to me that gay couples have been living together as married all along. You can get married at city hall and the church would then have nothing to do with it. It's what us atheists/agnostics do.
However, does everyone recognize this insofar as estates or whatever else? Is it consistent from state to state? (I realize divorce laws are not universal)
That's more the exception than the rule. Fringe demographics are always excluded (i.e. Kings of England)
I'm not a divorce law expert, so I can't say much about it. But as far as I know, estates and patients' rights and many other similar issues are basically the same in all states.
because you are ALWAYS going to have a large part of the population that will oppose same-sex marriages if you use the term "marriage".
I'm pretty sure many figures in the old testament had multiple wives. I think the "one man one woman" thing is a christian thing and likely a more recent thing than you might expect.
No one has ownership of the word "marriage," least of all churches. Any adults should be allowed to get married, with full legal marriage rights. Churches can choose who they will perform religious weddings for. That preserves everyone's rights.
