So, I know this probably has some problems with it, but I've been rolling this idea around in my head for a while. If you like, you can skip straight down to the idea (I'll put emphasis on it so it's easy to spot), but if you want to get into a good discussion of it, I ask you to read my justification for it.
First, I'll start with things I think most reasonable people should be able to agree on:
- Separation of church and state, at least in flagrant cases, is probably a good idea.
Not to mention, it's a two-way street. We can agree that an established state religion is a bad idea, and I think most people can agree that forcing churches to marry certain people or accept certain people into the congregation against the will of the church is a bad idea.
Mentions of God in national anthems are for the nit-pickers. Here, we're only concerned with the big picture.
- There is no call for the aggressive eradication of homosexuality.
Love and sexuality is largely a private issue. It's not as though gay people, as a whole, have a drive to trick straight people into becoming gay against their will. What happens between two consenting adults behind closed doors is their own business, and there's really no need to try to stop them from doing it.
- Civil unions are okay
This is potentially the sticking point. While some feel that allowing gays legal benefits while cohabiting will be damaging to society, there doesn't seem to be any logical, secular reason that this would happen.
Now, we'll look at the motivation of the two groups, at least in the moderate, widely-held case.
Gays/pro-gay-marriage people:
- Want to be able to be married because they want to be considered equal to heterosexual couples.
Seems valid enough, considering that there are no logistical prerequisites for marriage that homosexual couples could not complete. Heterosexual couples are not required to have children or to have any parenting skills, they're not required to be sexually conservative or faithful, they're not even required to love each other.
There doesn't seem to be a logical argument that could be made against homosexuals receiving the same legal benefits that couldn't easily be leveled at many heterosexual couples.
- Are dissatisfied with civil unions, mainly due to the segregated status
Understandable. Having a segregated system could be interpreted by some to equate to government acknowledgment that gay couples are not as valid as straight couples. More importantly, it opens up the door for legal abuse by the anti-gay lobby, as they have a venue to change the legal benefits of gay couples without changing those of heterosexual couples. A united system provides more security for the rights of gay couples.
In this context, "marriage" is considered a legal term, which shouldn't have religious ties due to the separation of church and state.
Traditionalists/anti-gay-marriage people:
- Marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman that goes back thousands of years. The use of the word "marriage" by gay couples is a violation of this, and amounts to sacrilege/cheapening of tradition/ungoodness.
Though I don't agree with this sentiment, I do understand it. It's something that you hold to be important, and having people co-opt the term, which has been used in religious context for many, many generations, in a way that you feel directly contravenes the doctrine of your religion can be troubling.
However, what I want to stress as important here is that it's the use of the term "marriage" by gays that is troubling, and it's troubling in the religious sense, not the legal sense.
------------
Now, how to we make everyone happy?
SOLUTION: Remove the term "marriage" entirely as a legal term. Both heterosexuals and homosexuals will have civil unions rather than marriages, old marriage licenses are treated as civil unions, and laws are retroactively modified to treat any references to "marriage" as a reference to civil unions.
If both sides are being honest about their positions, then this solution works out for everyone.
The pro-gay-marriage side should be happy, as this results in complete equality between homosexual and heterosexual couples. Since separation of church and state is the most powerful argument in the arsenal, the specific legal term used shouldn't matter.
The anti-gay-marriage side should be happy, as the state is not officially recognizing this as a "marriage," and neither is their church, in the sense that a marriage is a union in the eyes of god, not in the eyes of the government. Due to the separation of church and state, the failure of the state to recognize the union specifically as a "marriage" is inconsequential. You get your civil union license from city hall, and you get married at the church.
After this, the term "marriage" has no legal meaning, and is relegated to use by churches, bridal stores and reality TV shows.
------------
As far as I can tell, there are no major problems with this solution. It's also something that could be passed by legislature without having to fiddle around with constitutional amendments. It's a quick fix that doesn't require restructuring, and it's not open to abuse.
Now, what are the problems and how do we fix them?
This is actually one of the few good solutions I've seen on the issue.
The main reason this won't work (not that I don't support it) is that many older people are stuck in their ways. They don't want to budge and cling on to religion like a rope. They are not able to comprehend the change in society while younger people are.
Still, thought, this is a pretty good solution.
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"Question everything generally thought to be obvious."-Dieter Rams
I am really sorry if I just seem like an annoying 17 year old with this.
Calling Marriages "Civil Unions" just seems, well...bad. I mean it's the title itself, renaming it is like sidestepping what people feel is right and saying "No it's fine, it's not marriage, it's just the same exact thing with a diffrent name."
Besides, that would upset traditionalists anyway. I mean you just renamed marriage.
But other than that it doesn't seem like a bad idea, you just cannot predict how people would handle this.
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At 6/16/08 12:27 PM, TheRadicalOne wrote: Besides, that would upset traditionalists anyway. I mean you just renamed marriage.
No I didn't. I just changed the legal term that refers to a licensed union of two citizens that carries certain legal benefits and obligations. What the traditionalists consider to be "marriage" has not changed at all.
At 6/16/08 12:40 PM, Elfer wrote:At 6/16/08 12:27 PM, TheRadicalOne wrote: Besides, that would upset traditionalists anyway. I mean you just renamed marriage.No I didn't. I just changed the legal term that refers to a licensed union of two citizens that carries certain legal benefits and obligations. What the traditionalists consider to be "marriage" has not changed at all.
True. I just can't help but think that some people would still get pissy over the name being changed.
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Kogey made a sig, but it was too much for me to handle.
So we should say civilly united, instead of married?
F*ck the religious, I'm gettin' married.
Why do you try to explain something yet unexplainable by logic, with something absolutely illogic and by its very nature unexplainable? What's the purpose of that nonsense?
Yes. This is the best solution by far. I fully support it. Also, note that today civil unions and marriage is NOT the same juridically. Married people DO get more rights.
At 6/16/08 01:11 PM, Diederick wrote: So we should say civilly united, instead of married?
F*ck the religious, I'm gettin' married.
Of course you can say that you get married. But the government doesn't say that. It's not about banning the word "marriage", it's about removing it from the law.
You shouldn't believe that you have the right of free thinking, it's a threat to our democracy.
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At 6/16/08 01:11 PM, Diederick wrote: So we should say civilly united, instead of married?
F*ck the religious, I'm gettin' married.
You can call it whatever you want with your husband. What Elfer is proposing is that heterosexual marriages shouldn't be considered more official than gay marriages, as both straight and gay unions would be considered "civil unions" in legal and official contexts.
There's no reason why you can't call your marriage a marriage. Maybe you'll piss off some religious nutjob if you do that, but his straight marriage isn't any more officially a marriage than yours is.
I don't think Elfer is suggesting that churches should be allowed to sue you for calling gay marriages marriages, but simply that the word marriage should no longer have a legal meaning.
Allowing gay marriage makes no sense and is stupid, they want to marry in a religious act which the religion itself they want to marry in anti-homosexuals is basic rule?
that's from a straight atheist guy
I think that's not any solution at all.
To have previous marriages suddenly call civil unions upsets those who believe it's a marriage.
While some gays may get some smug satisfaction at the thought of mass and draconian equalization of the legal name marriage... but, this is really a fight equality. I don't think a Soloman's solution would make neither gays nor straights happy albiet both would be equalized.
In this problem, there's no possible middle man. It's an either-or solution.
At 6/16/08 02:28 PM, fli wrote: I think that's not any solution at all.
To have previous marriages suddenly call civil unions upsets those who believe it's a marriage.
But for those who attach religious meaning to the word marriage, their marriage still IS a marriage. They're still "married" in the eyes of the church. What this does is gives religion control over the use of the term "marriage," which is exactly what they wanted in the first place.
They have no reason to be upset by the altering of a single legal term that primarily describes the organization of shared financial assets.
In this problem, there's no possible middle man. It's an either-or solution.
But there IS a middle man, it's exactly what I've described. It's this sort of thinking that prevents an entirely reasonable solution like this from gaining any headway.
You're still fag enabling.
Its one side against another. Sunni vs. Shiite. Con vs. Lib.
Some issues cannot be solved because of the "us vs. them" mentality.
At 6/16/08 12:13 PM, Elfer wrote: - Separation of church and state, at least in flagrant cases, is probably a good idea.
Not to mention, it's a two-way street. We can agree that an established state religion is a bad idea, and I think most people can agree that forcing churches to marry certain people or accept certain people into the congregation against the will of the church is a bad idea.
I don't think legalizing gay marriage is going to force priests to go against their religous beliefs and marry homosexuals. I don't understand the christian opposition to gay marriage, it has no logical basis. They want to be able to get legaly married, how does christianity have anything to do with it? People get married without any religous ceremony all the time, infact I would say marriage is already in a pretty shabby state, what with the drive through weddings, and who wants to marry a millionair, and 1/2 of all marriages ending in divorce.
There doesn't seem to be a logical argument that could be made against homosexuals receiving the same legal benefits that couldn't easily be leveled at many heterosexual couples.
In this context, "marriage" is considered a legal term, which shouldn't have religious ties due to the separation of church and state.
Exactly. So why do some people want to stop gays from marrying? To protect the sanctity of a word that has no sanctity? It's bullshit, it's an excuse for intolerance.
At 6/16/08 02:43 PM, Me-Patch wrote:At 6/16/08 12:13 PM, Elfer wrote: - Separation of church and state, at least in flagrant cases, is probably a good idea.I don't think legalizing gay marriage is going to force priests to go against their religous beliefs and marry homosexuals.
Not to mention, it's a two-way street. We can agree that an established state religion is a bad idea, and I think most people can agree that forcing churches to marry certain people or accept certain people into the congregation against the will of the church is a bad idea.
Exactly. The point I was getting at is that there should be no big upset from the religious crowd if the state stops using a word that they consider to have some religious meaning.
Exactly. So why do some people want to stop gays from marrying? To protect the sanctity of a word that has no sanctity? It's bullshit, it's an excuse for intolerance.
Because they conflate the legal term with the religious term. They attach meaning to the word "marriage" no matter how it's used. It's stupid, but it's what happens, and we need to deal with it.
I totally agree with this... i've called for the eradication of legal marriage entirely; the next step is to abolish sexuality.
On a moving train there are no centrists, only radicals and reactionaries.
At 6/16/08 02:59 PM, Elfer wrote:At 6/16/08 02:43 PM, Me-Patch wrote: I don't think legalizing gay marriage is going to force priests to go against their religous beliefs and marry homosexuals.Exactly. The point I was getting at is that there should be no big upset from the religious crowd if the state stops using a word that they consider to have some religious meaning.
Your right, there shouldn't be. But I also think there shouldn't be a need to change the word marriage. If the religous are so offended by gays getting married than they should change the name of their own ceremony.
Exactly. So why do some people want to stop gays from marrying? To protect the sanctity of a word that has no sanctity? It's bullshit, it's an excuse for intolerance.Because they conflate the legal term with the religious term. They attach meaning to the word "marriage" no matter how it's used. It's stupid, but it's what happens, and we need to deal with it.
I think they need to deal with it. They are wrong, therefore they are the ones forcing their beliefs on our country, not the gays.
"Yeah I'm going to my son's civil uniion this weekend".
"oh man, I met this awesome chick at Rick's civil union ceremony!"
"I watched the movie, "civil-union crashers" last night. WHEW! It sucks!".
"Will you civility unite with me, female citizen Marie, of Kansas, New America?"
pff
see when Drakim was talking about a middle-man bullshit compromise? This is it. Opposants of gay marriage have NOTHING. Zero.
Why should BOTH sides lose when only one side is wrong?
Why should EVERYONE change when only a few should just shut their fucking mouths and accept that we've not living in the middle ages anymore?
I like this solution. It's not really a comprimise, it just takes alot of the arguing chips away from from the anti-gay rights people out there. My big worry is once the gay marriage/civil union argument is done and over with. How much more of a hurdle will there be to get gay adoption and parenting rights set?
Is it something to take one at a time or do you tackle the two together?
Our growing dependence on laws only shows how uncivilized we are.
At 6/16/08 03:36 PM, poxpower wrote: "Yeah I'm going to my son's civil uniion this weekend".
"oh man, I met this awesome chick at Rick's civil union ceremony!"
"I watched the movie, "civil-union crashers" last night. WHEW! It sucks!".
"Will you civility unite with me, female citizen Marie, of Kansas, New America?"
The colloquial name for a civil union ceremony is a "wedding"
Why should BOTH sides lose when only one side is wrong?
Because one side is loud, annoying, and complicates things by voting a lot.
This solution essentially provides that side with plausible deniability that gays are actually getting married, so they'll be able to say "Well, at least they're not MARRIED, like I am," until they die. After they've all died out, everything will be cool.
At 6/16/08 04:29 PM, Elfer wrote:
The colloquial name for a civil union ceremony is a "wedding"
Are you seriously telling me they're ok with the word "wedding" but not the word "marriage"???
Or we could just call them "Butt-Buddies"
i think we should call them ass clowns or butt pirates or butt buddies(jk) i think that it is wrong to discriminate
touched by his noodly appendage
At 6/16/08 05:12 PM, poxpower wrote:At 6/16/08 04:29 PM, Elfer wrote:The colloquial name for a civil union ceremony is a "wedding"Are you seriously telling me they're ok with the word "wedding" but not the word "marriage"???
There's no legal definition of the word wedding, so yeah.
At 6/16/08 07:54 PM, Grammer wrote: As a Christian I have no problems with my government not recognizing marriage as a legal term. The government doesn't have to recognize it for God to recognize it.
See, this is the response that I would expect from a reasonable, moderate person who is truly and honestly concerned with their religious beliefs rather than the politics involved.
However, I think that in practice, there would be a lot of uppity people getting really pissed off that the gays are trying to throw god out of society or something.
At 6/16/08 07:58 PM, Grammer wrote: Religion made the institution, so it should stay within the boundaries of religion.
But it's already way out of religions hands. It's already a joke in so many ways thats it not even funny.
It's funny because when you say "only a few", I thought you were referring to the pro-gay marriage, the supporters that are in the minority, lulz
He meant that the whole world shouldn't change just to appease both the gays and christians.
At 6/16/08 07:58 PM, Grammer wrote:
Religion made the institution, so it should stay within the boundaries of religion.
People have been getting married in all societies all over the world for millenia.
Religion doesn't have any claims on the concept. Or even the word.
in fact, here read this: http://www.contemporaryfamilies.org/subt emplate.php?t=inTheNews&ext=news080
No one has any claim on the concept or the word "marriage". To try and keep it for themselves in an offense to society and taking a shit on the constitution, which I don't even care about anyways, but those bible-thumpers love to talk about the constitution.
They shouldn't get their way, AT ALL.
It's funny because when you say "only a few", I thought you were referring to the pro-gay marriage, the supporters that are in the minority, lulz
I doubt even 0.1% of america gives a shit about that issue.
Seriously, there's just a tiny minority of religious extremists trying to keep other people from doing things, as usual.
At 6/16/08 10:05 PM, Elfer wrote:
Are you seriously telling me they're ok with the word "wedding" but not the word "marriage"???There's no legal definition of the word wedding, so yeah.
So why is there a legal definition of "marriage" in a society where there is separation of church and state?
Doesn't that automatically mean that "marriage" is NOT a religious term?
So either they shut the hell up, or EVERYONE changes the word to "civil union" like a bunch of dweebs. Ridiculous.
At 6/16/08 10:33 PM, poxpower wrote:At 6/16/08 10:05 PM, Elfer wrote:So why is there a legal definition of "marriage" in a society where there is separation of church and state?Are you seriously telling me they're ok with the word "wedding" but not the word "marriage"???There's no legal definition of the word wedding, so yeah.
Doesn't that automatically mean that "marriage" is NOT a religious term?
In the legal context, it isn't. In the realm of reality, people conflate the religious term with the legal term because they're the same word.
If you really don't believe that religious people are prone to this, see the rgetoric around the term "theory."
So either they shut the hell up, or EVERYONE changes the word to "civil union" like a bunch of dweebs. Ridiculous.
Essentially yes. Ridiculous and true.
Simply saying that a problem shouldn't exist doesn't change the fact that the problem actually does exist. Sure it's stupid, and sure people should change, but the reality is that it doesn't matter that it's stupid because people aren't going to change.
At 6/16/08 11:05 PM, Elfer wrote:
In the legal context, it isn't. In the realm of reality, people conflate the religious term with the legal term because they're the same word.
*erg*
Ok how about THEY call it a "christian marriage" and leave everyone else alone?
How's that?
Because now you have it set up so that in the law, it's a civil union, but in the culture, it will still be called a "gay marriage", and they'll still get pissed off.
Simply saying that a problem shouldn't exist doesn't change the fact that the problem actually does exist.
I know what you're saying, but do we bend and take it up the ass, or do we take a stand and finally say "enough!"?
It's got to stop. These assholes are trying to steal WORDS away from people. No, fuck them, they won't win.
At 6/16/08 11:20 PM, poxpower wrote: *erg*
Ok how about THEY call it a "christian marriage" and leave everyone else alone?
How's that?
Good, but mainly because it's just optimistic. The fact is that people aren't going to actually be willing to do that.
Because now you have it set up so that in the law, it's a civil union, but in the culture, it will still be called a "gay marriage", and they'll still get pissed off.
So? We can't legislate culture, man.
Simply saying that a problem shouldn't exist doesn't change the fact that the problem actually does exist.I know what you're saying, but do we bend and take it up the ass, or do we take a stand and finally say "enough!"?
Since gay marriage proponents aren't in the majority in a lot of US states, I'd say that taking a stand and saying "enough" is a good way to never get anything at all done.
In this case, it is likely best to have the anti side win in name while the pro side wins in practice.
At 6/16/08 11:24 PM, Elfer wrote:
So? We can't legislate culture, man.
What do you mean?
Like, force people who feature gay people getting married in a movie to call it a "civil union" or something?
If you change it to "civil union" and religious people still get to say marriage ( and they will ) but gays can't, that's horrible :O
And if somehow the entire problem was solved just by changing the law to say "civil union" while still letting everyone call it a "marriage", then.. I would be.. so fucking baffled.
haha
Since gay marriage proponents aren't in the majority in a lot of US states, I'd say that taking a stand and saying "enough" is a good way to never get anything at all done.
I really don't give a shit about gays and weddings so meh.
But what is this bullshit? Can US people write someone to complain? It's a matter of support here. You have to support people who want a right you think they deserve, even if you don't give a shit if they get it or not.
Meh I live in Canada. I think it's legal here, but I don't even know. I'm just amazed that some people gave enough of a damn to cause this giant shitstorm about it.
Who has that kind of time? Shouldn't they be praying or something?
At 6/16/08 03:36 PM, poxpower wrote: Why should EVERYONE change when only a few should just shut their fucking mouths and accept that we've not living in the middle ages anymore?
I thought YOU of all people would be glad if the Church looses their juridical power to marry people.
You know, this is GOOD if you're not religious, no matter what you think about gays.
You shouldn't believe that you have the right of free thinking, it's a threat to our democracy.
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