Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
In her thought-provoking post about marriage (below), Rachel Lu contends that gays should accept civil unions rather than marriage. Like Rachel, I'm a supporter of traditional marriage, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that the best policy for the state to follow is not to make marriage universal, but to make civil unions universal. In other words, get the state out of the marriage business.
The real sticking point in the marriage debate is not economic, it's cultural. In California, for example, the civil partnership law confers the same benefits as marriage (even Judge Vaughn Walker conceded the point), but the plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case insist that the state must refer to their relationship as "marriage." But marriage is an ancient term in our civilization; it's a religious sacrament, and the state has no business, you might say, monkeying around with centuries of tradition.
Agreed -- so why give the State the power to define "marriage" in the first place? Granted, the state must (I think) have something like marriage, for purposes of tax filing, survivor's benefits, intestate succession, and the like. Civil unions do that. So why not get rid of state marriage licenses, and create a civil union regime that would be open to same-sex couples? If you want to get married, go to a church. Sort of like the formalities around birth: the state issues a birth certificate, but you go to church or temple to arrange baptism or bris.
I know there are counter arguments; that's why I'm posting this here. Hit me with your best shot -- as the man said. What do you think?
- Comment (53)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (5)
Comments:
Aug '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Whether civil unions are extended to gays or not, I'm of the opinion that marriage before a justice of the peace is a civil union. It's a union. It's civil.
What turns it into a sacrament is the church's blessing on the union, and that is up to the church.
Perhaps I'm unusually simple-minded.
Apr '11
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Yes! If we can not agree on the States use of the word "marriage" it should just avoid the word. I think this is a great idea.
Edited on June 15, 2012 at 11:03pmNov '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
This is how I put it to Delingpole some months ago:
Saying marriage should be banished to the private realm is simply a dodge. You could privatize the entire institution of marriage and this still does nothing to absolve the issue of education in public schools (the trajectory of the country is simply not toward privatizing public education). It does nothing to address the indoctrination of children -- via public schools -- into believing marriage is whatever one wants it to be, or that the distinction between man and woman is arbitrary.
It also does nothing to immure religious practice from incursions from the state. There's nothing to be gainsaid against a government that wishes to deem traditional religious teachings about marriage a form of hate speech or bigotry. We already have intimations of this in Canada and Sweden (you can be locked up for years in prison for publicly teaching that homosexual marriage is a perversion).
Fully privatizing marriage is simply tantamount to saying that everything is a privatized creation; that there is nothing that is common; in other words, that the world has no objective meaning.
[cont'd]
Nov '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
You're assuming we can have a separation of marriage and state in the same way we have separation of church and state. The freedom to marry should be akin to freedom of religion.
But you are confusing two different types of freedom.
The ultimate purpose of religious freedom is eternal salvation, the requirements of which we can cannot rationally and publicly determine. The main purpose of marriage, in contrast, is to civilize society, a goal which most of us seek.The state may be indifferent to the former, but not to the latter.
Marriage is arguably the most important of all social institutions because it both reflects and shapes the most pervasive and perhaps most problematic distinction within the human species: the natural differences between men and women.
Jun '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Once there's absolutely no stigma to being gay--that's not so hard to imagine--nothing would prevent an accountant from telling his client, "you and your longtime roommate need to be married. You'll qualify for this, and this, and that, as a couple...save a lot of money." "But we're not gay." "I didn't say you had to be gay. I said you should get 'married'."
May '11
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake: Whether civil unions are extended to gays or not, I'm of the opinion that marriage before a justice of the peace is a civil union. It's a union. It's civil.
What turns it into a sacrament is the church's blessing on the union, and that is up to the church.
Perhaps I'm unusually simple-minded. · 2 minutes ago
Well, sometimes they are civil.
I agree totally with your point which seems to agree with Adam's. The GLBTXYZ crowd want something other than leagal status.
Jul '11
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
I agree completely about government getting out of marriage. The trouble is that people delude themselves into thinking that marriage is about religion. It is not. If it is, by the constitution, the government should have no say in it.
Marriage laws can be traced to European laws that protected women when they could not legally inherit property or vote. Well, that is no longer the case. So, why is the government interested in marriage? I suspect that it has to do with death taxes. If government gets out of marriage business, then the widows of fallen policemen and soldiers would lose their homes to death taxes. Not good PR for death tax.
I disagree with Rachel - the defense of marriage is not so much cultural but totally political. Democrats know that they can't hide behind African Americans as the underclass anymore so now we have gays as the new underclass.
Paternity can be established genetically or legally, so that's no longer the motive.
I think the government should get out of marriage business and allow civil unions between all sorts - same sex, multiple partners, etc. etc.
Nov '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Robert Lux:
Fully privatizing marriage is simply tantamount to saying that everything is a privatized creation; that there is nothing that is common; in other words, that the world has no objective meaning.
[cont'd]
On this point, see my post on Nietzsche and Martha Nussbaum: "Nietzsche on Love & Marriage: Or, What is the Common Amidst the Private?"
The question underlying SSM: what is common? It's the question nobody on the libertarian side wants to deal with.
May '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Adam, it's an interesting idea. I might agree to it if I believed advocates would be content with it. But I don't.
Gay advocates don't seek tolerance of their relationships, or even indifference to them. They want approval of those relationships. They want cultural normalization. It ain't happening.
May '12
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Unfortunately liberal church denominations like the Episcopal Church will bless same sex civil unions and turn them into " Christian marriages" no matter what the state does. There are many including many gays who support civil unions, but find using the term marriage to be insensitive & arrogant. Arrogance is a key attitude of liberalism.
May '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
I think the qualifier "For Everybody" has larger implications than you're exploring here, but it's a good jumping-off point.
There is no reason to restrict "civil unions" to sexual couples-- gay, straight, or otherwise. The common example of elderly widowed sisters who move in together comes to mind.
I'm starting to think the state should be in the business of Household Registration, or something like that. Such an official recognition could cast a wide net for all sorts of domestic arrangments, and be based purely on the sharing of household assets, liabilities, and default accomodations in the case of accident or illness. And leave the sex out of it.
Meanwhile, marriage could remain reserved to its traditional definition, in which the sexual aspects of the relationship actually are important enough for the state to pay attention. For all the obvious reasons.
Edited on June 15, 2012 at 11:50pmApr '12
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Adam, I think your idea is better than the suggestion that we should "expand" marriage. However, I don't think it will be healthy for heterosexual couples to get the idea that they can be civilly unified without being married. We want people to stop thinking of couplehood as a choose-your-own-adventure, and adding more options to the menu won't further that goal. Still, as I say, I'd rather see the legal arrangement downgraded than watch the (legal) institution of marriage be forcibly expanded. For one thing, I think I would still win the cognac that way.
Jul '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Aaron Miller: Adam, it's an interesting idea. I might agree to it if I believed advocates would be content with it. But I don't.
Gay advocates don't seek tolerance of their relationships, or even indifference to them. They want approval of those relationships. They want cultural normalization. It ain't happening. · 41 minutes ago
I'm in agreement with Aaron. The fact that civil unions were not enough but that the word marriage must be forced into the equation by gay rights advocates betrays that the real motivation is not "equal rights" but the legitimation of what has long been considered a perverted lifestyle.
Feb '11
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Well, when that happens, it certainly will be the first time in the history of the Earth that a marriage occurred for convenience or financial considerations. A solution to this complaint could be simplifying our tax code to remove special 'qualifications'.
As for the premise for the post, if you want the state to recognize your union, get a civil union. If you want to get married, go to church.
Aug '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
I'm not sure what the end-game is but I believe that when gender has been neutralised as an element of marriage the next target will be to do the same for biology and parenting.
May '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Marriage is an historic moral commitment; civil unions are a legal convention. Rachel is right, and Megan McArdle explains why we need to be careful about this sort of thing.
Jan '11
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Aaron makes a powerful point.
I'm "evolving" on my opinion of civil unions - away from them. I thought they might serve as a useful arrangement for people who want to be married but can't have children. And if you bend the law to accommodate couples who can't have children for some biological reason, then I'm not sure how you can rationally deny civil unions for gays.
Yes, it isn't "fully marriage," but at least it's recognition.
However, to accept that understanding of civil unions, you'd still have to acknowledge that procreation is an essential part of a "full marriage." It isn't the only part, but I argue that it's an essential part. But gays have shown that they have no intention of including procreation and family to be any part of marriage. They've completely separated it from marriage, and they see marriage exclusively and merely as a relationship between spouses.
No. I won't buy that, so I see no purpose in proposing civil unions.
May '12
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Adam,
Sounds good. Where do you want my signature?
Apr '11
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Whiskey Sam
I'm in agreement with Aaron. The fact that civil unions were not enough but that the word marriage must be forced into the equation by gay rights advocates betrays that the real motivation is not "equal rights" but the legitimation of what has long been considered a perverted lifestyle. · 2 hours ago
(My emphasis)
That is precisely the problem homosexuals have. They are fighting against a long tradition has has considered their very existence a "perversion". Obtaining "marriage" would be a means for them to know that society at large no longer views them this way. But, that is exactly what many people who oppose gay marriage do not wish to concede. This being that homosexuality is a perversion.
This of course is the real divide that exists. Sadly the two views of homosexuality can not coexist I believe. One will have to win out over the other.
Dec '10
Re: Weekend Question: How About Civil Unions for Everybody?
Valiuth
Whiskey Sam
I'm in agreement with Aaron. The fact that civil unions were not enough but that the word marriage must be forced into the equation by gay rights advocates betrays that the real motivation is not "equal rights" but thelegitimation of what has long been considered a perverted lifestyle.· 2 hours ago
(My emphasis)
That is precisely the problem homosexuals have. They are fighting against a long tradition has has considered their very existence a "perversion". Obtaining "marriage" would be a means for them to know that society at large no longer views them this way. But, that is exactly what many people who oppose gay marriage do not wish to concede. This being that homosexuality is a perversion.
This of course is the real divide that exists. Sadly the two views of homosexuality can not coexist I believe. One will have to win out over the other. · 6 minutes ago
(My emphasis)
Why? The underlying belief about the existence of a God who is the author of the divide has coexisted with atheism for Millenia as long as religion was not institued by the state.