Reddit had this link:
Marriages for none, civil unions for all.
That’s some conservativeness I can get behind. It neatly solves the professed problem of keeping “marriage” “sacred”.
I’ve stated elsewhere that I think there should be as many types of legal civil unions as there are legal corporate organizations. You can form an S or C corp, an LLP, LLC, or a sole proprietorship, but you’ve only got one (possibly two in some states) types of civil contracts.
So, whoever’s in charge of that… make that happen, okay? Thanks.
Heinlein proposed that solution ages ago – have clear, fully-defined contracts available for everything from “Two Hours Of Heaven” to a lifetime monogamous commitment. How much easier would relationships of ALL kinds be, if the people involved signed onto a clear-cut set of ground rules before entering into them? Bring it on!
Ah! Thank you! I was trying to find the link yesterday to where I had been writing about alternate civil contracts before, and you made me remember it was in a Book Log entry about a Heinlein novel.
How is it that Heinlein can get it so right, but Orson Scott Card gets it so wrong? I mean, they both wrote in a positive light about alternate lifestyles. In the fifth Ender book, Card writes about beings that have relationships with trees for goodness sakes.
I think many who support the amendments defining marriage don’t have a problem with civil unions (and I put myself in that category). If you want to form a union with someone of the same sex, I say have at it. You’re free to do so. But it’s not “marriage.” Since time began, “marriage” has meant the union of a man and a woman. I don’t think you can change the definition of a word just because you don’t like it. It is what it is.
I’m not hatin.’ I just think this is where a lot of us are coming from.
-Jen L.
(I fixed a typo. I think this will post twice. Oops!)
i gotta say – having “clearly defined legal contracts” will change nothing. My husband and I entered into a clearly defined “for better or worse” lifetime monogamous contract….
and he still screwed me over. Because he “changed” and “just didn’t want that anymore”.
People are fickle. And selfish. And have very little understanding of what committment and covenant mean – becuase *whine* it’s too hard and I have “rights” to do what makes ME happy…me, me, me!!!!! (foot stomping included). And haveing a million different “legal arrangements” or definitions will do nothing to change that. Unless we make said contracts more difficult to get out of. But who wants THAT mess? I mean, I was dedicated to my “contract” but he was not. Would I really want to be forced to stay with him knowing the only reason he was there was becuase it would be too difficult legally to leave?
Sorry if I’m cynical. Finding out you’ve been married to an ass that you now have to have a “legal parenting relationship’ with for the rest of your life does that to a person. Until everyone decides that marriage and family are sacred institutions to be revered, honored, and upheld, not commodities to be traded in when the market fluctuates, then no legal definition or contract will help anything. Until humans can really embrace the whole “love your neighbor as yourself” and fully understand that others are more important than what I feel at the moment, then here we are and here we will stay. Homo, Hetero, or anything in between.
I think we are at common ground here, but the terminology is messing a lot of people up. It’s hard to tell if any given person disagrees with applying the term marriage to a same sex couple, or if they’re really against same sex couples.
After all, people often use the term marriage metaphorically (a corporate merger becomes a “marriage” of two companies), but there is rarely an outcry against this, nor millions of dollars mobilized against the usage. It’s easy to see where if there’s an outcry over the usage of the word, some folks suspect that the word isn’t the real underlying issue.
Regardless, until we can cut through the semantics, we’re going to have trouble finding that middle ground. Words can be so annoying.
That’s why I like the solution proposed. I think most folks who want it to be clear that marriage is between a man and a woman are referring to a bond under a diety, and thus it would be nice and clean if we could shift marriage solely to the private sector, and define a legalese term for the IRS and other government institutions, like civil union or civil partnership.
Yes please. I’ve been proposing the same kind of thing since Damon and I got married. I kept protesting that I didn’t see why the government got to approve or validate our marriage anyway. Let the government equally acknowledge and deal with all our relationships and let churches and other non-governmental institutions marry (or not) however they like.