It's OK to be Gay in NJ

[Polly]

I couldn't resist the rhyme in the thread title. Now on the important stuff. Do you think civil unions are the way to approach gay marriage? I'm not talking about personal religious influences or ethics/moral influenced opinions on whether or not it's a sin, blah, blah, blah. I'm refering purely to the legal aspects of the situation.

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/gay-couple-benefits-start-in-new-jersey/20070219045409990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Personally, I think no. Here's why: Brown vs. Board of Education, 1954. Governments are placing homosexuals seeking a formal and legal recognition of their relationship in a second citizen status. It's not constitutional. And yes, I hope it ends up at the Supreme Court. This half-assed shit doesn't work. Either completely ban it (and let a challenge commence) or approve it for everyone.

Polly

:soapbox

[Jo]

Actually, I agree with civil unions. I think all filed 'partnerships', whether they be gay or straight, should be called civil unions. I don't like the government being in the business of marriage. I vehemently disagreed with having to file a marriage license because I didn't think it was their place to be involved. But if we have to deal with the governmental aspect, all unions should be called civil unions. After that, people can go out and do whatever they want to sanctify it themselves.

[Lori]

I agree that it's a half-assed solution, but at the same time, having rights, no matter what name they go under, is better than not having rights. If civil unions are a way to get people to support allowing same-sex couples to have the same rights as straight couples, then it's better than nothing.

[off-kilter]

I'm almost of the mind as Jo, as I think that the connotations of "marriage" in the legal sense are horribly muddled with the religious/social convention of "marriage" in people's minds. People keep saying that marriage (social/religous) is about love and honoring their god(s), when in the legal world it's all about rights/responsibilites/property/next-of-kin, etc.

However, I disagree that it's the government that's pushing these other, overriding conventions onto people. Yes, they do issue "marriage" licenses, but they're not telling you who or how to love (not even that you must love your partner), they're not telling you how to worship your deity of choice with this move, they're not (for the most part in modern society) even telling you what kinds of interactions are to occur between "married" people. It's society and culture that bind up and clutter those aspects.

We could call all the legal bindings civil unions, but common culture and vernacular would regress it back to marriage pretty darn quickly, methinks. No heterosexual couple is forced to be wed according to govern't standards; they still call themselves husband and wife in spirit/social spheres without the legal structure. It's only if you want the legal bennies/ties that you have to file a certificate. Somehow, I think most people don't consider those bound "spiritually" but not in the eyes of our State quite as cemented as those with both or even just the State's structure.

Intellectually, I do agree that civil unions is the term that seems to tread the PC line, but marriage has been about property, inheritance, next-of-kin, etc, far longer than it's been a religously sanctified union. Why not leave the term to be "marriage" and others can can say that theirs is a "Blessed" marriage or "Covanent" marriage or even a "We give a shit more than you" marriage? Why do *I* have to give up a perfectly good term because others are reading more into it?

Considering that the majority of religious marriages disapprove of divorce (even though some allow it while being disapproving) and yet the divorce rate is so high, it seems that most marriages today are based on legal and emotional ties rather than religious fervor anyway.

[/rambling rant late at night]

[Lisa]

I tend to think that "marriage" is just another word for civil union. It's a label like most words. I have yet to hear anyone give me a valid argument against gay marriage that wasn't religion based and I don't think other peoples religion belongs in other peoples lives unless they want it to be. So while i'm glad that NJ is allowing civil unions, we may as well call it marriage because we call other unions marriage that were never "blessed" in a church. I hope that makes sense LOL

[gr8mommy]

Somehow, I think most people don't consider those bound "spiritually" but not in the eyes of our State quite as cemented as those with both or even just the State's structure

If you mean "spiritually" as in simply "living together without paper", I'm one of those people.

I don't think "marriage" is just "one of those words", and I believe that since the beginning it has meant the union of opposite-sex couples. I'd like to see a new word coined to indicate a same-sex union. I often wonder why advocates of same-sex partnerships argue in one breath that the word is so ingrained in the culture that they just have to use it, yet don't mind the idea that people will think they are straight if they say they are 'married'. If people always think of 'married' as 'man and woman', why not come up with a new word (or two) to indicate a gay or lesbian union? That would do more to advance acceptance than anything else. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone but me, so in a nutshell:

1. I think people living together with no legal status are less committed than those who are. That doesn't mean I think everyone who DOES commit legally takes it as seriously as they should.

2. I think same-sex couples deserve all the rights AND responsibilities that opposite sex legally bound couples receive.

3. Same-sex couples should coin a new term indicating that union.

[Lori]

I think "marriage" has meant a lot of things at a lot of times. For many centuries it could have meant the union of one man and numerous women, or a man and what we would today consider a (female) child.

I do agree with Jo that the legal and spiritual aspects are two different things. That's why, personally, it doesn't bother me too much if civil unions aren't called marriage. If you believe that God blesses same-sex couples who make a life-long commitment before him, which I do, then you can't ban gay marriage. You can pass all the laws against it you want, but it won't stop the marriages from being valid in the eyes of God, any more than slave marriages could be made invalid spiritually just because the state could refuse to recognize them. I do tend to agree that the only interest the state should have is in the contractual rights and obligations involved in the union, and that any sense of "blessing" is a separate matter in which the state should play no part.

I do worry about the possibility of creating a group of second-class citizens and relatioships, but gay people are already second-class citizens. It's better to have the rights and not call them marriage than to not have the rights.