"These are not things that just spontaneously change over time. You need to fight for them."

And that's fine, I agree with you. I just don't think using a government apparatus to do it is within the bounds of what government ought to do.

As for this solution being a "secondary" state -- it's only going to be that way if it's assumed to be that way, and I don't think it would be assumed so on its merits alone. The only way this would be assumed a "secondary" state is if the one assuming did so simply because the marriage involved gays, in which case the government mandate solution is no better, because the same people who would assume it a secondary state would assume any gay union is a secondary state. That's not something a government mandate would ever fix.

@ abgemacht - Then, forgive me for saying this, you don't really understand how inequality, intolerance or equal rights actually work. The fact is, the most poisonous vile and offensive bigots don't exist in a vacuum. They exist because they grew up in a society that allows that sort of hatred, in a few rare cases, because of a social structure and a way of thinking that is already slightly biased against the minority group in question. The fact is that even if no one was actually being hateful or bigoted in any intentional major way, we still live in a society that is substantially biased towards white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgendered, christian men. A fight for change in legal rights, has to go hand in hand with a fight to change the way people (and when I say "people" I'm not just referring to the Westboro Baptist Church here, I mean more or less everyone) think about the minority group in question. And it seems to me that permanently putting actual marriage, which has had some time, several centuries in fact, in which to establish itself as really the only way to legitimize a relationship, out of the reach of the LGBT community would work against that ultimate goal of changing the way people think about LGBT individuals.

Wow, I step away and do some work for a little while...

@Mafia - No, I don't see how "dismantling marriage" is a slap in the face. Marriage should never have been "mantled" to begin with. Marriage is a religious union, not a political one, and the government should never have made a religious ceremony a requirement for being a household. In fact, there was a time when living together for seven years made a couple "married" in the eyes of the law, but the law was wrong to even call that a marriage as it was usurping the religious aspects of marriage.

So no, dismantling the legal side of marriage isn't a slap in the face and is *exactly* what needs to be done. Then the LGBTQ community can argue with churches and find alternattive friendly churches or form their own churches if they want to be married in the eyes of God.

And don't say those churches don't exist... UCC and ELCA - 'nuf said.

Oh, and marriage started as a religious institution. Look to Judaism for a record of "God created man and *wife*" and tell me it isn't a religious insitution some 6-8000 years old. In fact, the English word "marriage" and the whole english language is younger than the union of man and wife.

But the point remains that government should never have called civil unions "marriage" as that is affirming a particular religious viewpoint (the Jewish/Christian view).

Look, I understand that none of you guys consider yourselves anti-gay or anything, that you're all trying to be open and accepting and tolerant. But what you're all doing is coming to an issue, never having had to face it from the side that is actually getting the raw deal, and then explaining how you think it should be solved, never having actually experienced the problem that needs solving in the first place. When men do this to feminists they call it "mansplaining". The point is, you're using all the privilege you have as straight men, to overwrite and dismiss the lived experience and the concerns of a group with less social power than you have. And quite frankly, I don't need a bunch of straight guys who've never actually faced any of the discrimination or bigotry that comes with being gay, telling me that everything I think about what the LGBT community needs is wrong. How the fuck would you know what the LGBT community needs?

@Mafia - *You* are the one not getting it. "Married" people would not have marriages in the eyes of the state. They, too, would have civil unions. It isn't making the Civil Union folks second class, it is makin one and only one class in the eyes of the law: Legally joined.

I would even say that future "marriages" would still require a separate civil union form (much like a marriage license now) but no marriage license would *ever* be issued again by the state. Being married would be something of the church only and the only "marriage license" would be issued by the church and would be a worthless piece of paper as the Civil Union License would be the only thing with legal and binding authority.

I'm not talking about what the LGBT community needs, i'm talking about community in general. Which i feel the LGBT community needs to be part of not apart from.

I guess I need to remind you of my best friend who passed nearly a decade ago. He was gay and we discussed this a lot. He liked my idea of the elimination of a marriage license so no one was married in the eyes of the law. So, I have seen it through his eyes and fely his pain with him. I have attended gay pride rallies along side him as my best friend to support him. So to dismiss my knowledge based on the simple fact that I am a straight male is doing exactly what you claim I am doing.

The government cannot get out of the issue of marriage. Marriage has over 1,000 federal benefits (social security, workers comp, family and medical leave act, ability to leave a pension to one's spouse, etc). Marriage covers issues such as mutual legal obligations regarding children, property, finances and other issues which require a legal mediator to resolve the disputes. Marriage clarifies rights pertaining to inheritance, funeral arrangements, hospital visitations, medical insurance, and other things. So like it or not, government is involved. Calling marriage civil union is not going to get government out of marriage in the least. Issues of federalism (which always obstruct progress) are going to prevent such a transformation anyway. The solution is for the federal government to recognize gay marriage and enforce the Constitution requirement of full faith and credit. It's a much easier solution than going out of the way not to offend the religious right by calling something marriage.

" the most poisonous vile and offensive bigots don't exist in a vacuum. They exist because they grew up in a society that allows that sort of hatred, in a few rare cases, because of a social structure and a way of thinking that is already slightly biased against the minority group in question."

@Mafia - The hill folk of West Virginia with no TVs or modern appliances and the same folk in the backwaters of Kentucky are some of the biggest skinhead types around. Yet the majority society has no effect on them. They will continue to be bigots and inbred fucktards as long as their microsocieties continue to exist. Society on the large is accepting the LGBT community as part of the greater community and will continue to improve as the old geezers (like my mom-in-law) die off and younger people come into maturity and positions of power and influence. Dismantling governmental marriage in favor of a pure and simple civil union is actually the one way you can get the outliers in the backwoods to become aware that their attitudes are unacceptable and in the distinct minority. When they go to marry their second cousin and find out there is no more marriages accordiong to the state, they'll get pissed, go on a rampage, and be either reprogrammed or removed from society.

The "get government out of marriage" canard is yet another case of a libertarian pipe dream that is steeped in naivete. Easy-sounding solutions are always too good to be true.

also, i think i'm seeing this as a bigger question than LGBT rights, it is a question of secular and religious powers, which just happens to impact on the LGBT community.

If marriage is seen as a goal worth attaining, something which completes one's life, i think taking this and changing it so Churches have no part in that goal is a worthwhile societal change. Not for the LGBT community, for everyone.

@Putin - you don't get it. The idea is to *replace* marriage as a union of two people by the state with making it a civil union. All those same rights would stille xist under the civil union and those rights would cease to exist for new marriages because the state would stop issuing marriage licenses and would instead issue civil union licenses or whatever term we want to use. Casically, we'd tell the extreme religious right to go fuck themselves, we don't need the word "marriage" and that all relationships of two (or more) consenting adults are equal in the eyes of the law.

@Putin, I'm with you as far as naivete and pipe dreaming.

but i think not fighting for a cause is no way to further it.

Just because it is hard, and perhaps beyond the changes likely to be seen in our lifetimes, doesn't mean it isn't worth discussing.

As long as the term "marriage" is used, it will never happen because the vocal minority (that calls itself the moral majority) has politicians in its pocket and will continue to have influence over government on the issue. But you pull the rug out from under them when you declare marriage to be legally a non-binding result of a religious ceremony and that all the legally binding aspects of a commitment ceremony are gathered under the blanket of "civil union".

France tried that, basically most heterosexual couples now enter into Civil Unions. It's a flimsier form of union between two people, much easier to terminate. But anyway that's a much more difficult solution than simply having the govt recognize marriage at the federal level.

But my objection was more about the argument that the government could extricate itself from all the legal and benefit matters pertaining to marriage. Whether you call it marriage or universalize civil unions, the government will always be involved.

"but i think not fighting for a cause is no way to further it. "

My point is this is inefficient way to fight for the cause. The cause would be better served by federal and state recognition of gay marriage, rather than assuaging the religious right by separating marriage ceremonies from government-backed civil unions.

Declaring all legal marriages to be civil unions and no longer issuing a marriage license does not assuage the "moral majority". In fact, it will piss them off because when it is completed, it will cut off their legs for arguing against recognition of gay rights.

And the change would be a name only change. The rights currently granted to married couples would *all* still be granted to *every* civil union.

"Look, I understand that none of you guys consider yourselves anti-gay or anything, that you're all trying to be open and accepting and tolerant."

"Instead of being an apology, it becomes an arrogant, insulting, magnanimous gesture."

...

Well, you have yet to tell any of us exactly what these issues are. This solution, quite literally, removes the religious pomp and circumstance from the legal union. It creates legal equality. That's all government can do.

No, it doesn't create 100% equality in the eyes of everyone in Rural Inbred Hickville, Mississippi. *Nothing can.* You can't "force" people via government mandate to accept something, and doing so often just empowers them to be even more bigoted. Culture, historically, is not forcibly changed instantaneously through government mandates.

The complaint (as best I can see it, because again, it hasn't explicitly been stated) is that certain people (mainly the religious fundamentalists, but certain people) won't accept a gay union as readily (if at all) as a straight union, even under this solution, because it lacks the ceremonial aspect of a full-on marriage. And yeah, that's true, some people are going to say "But it's not in the church blah blah blah" and hold it lesser. The problem is that these same people are just using things like that as an excuse to delegitimize a gay union, and even if you were to use government to force churches to marry people, they'd still come up with some other pretense, at best, or just outright admit their bigotry at worst.

So essentially, the current proposal here would eliminate legal inequalities (which actually do exist right now and do need to be corrected) and give the nonreligious aspect of marriage the acknowledgment it long needs, while still allowing churches to have their ceremony. The issue is that society acknowledges the ceremony as somehow being the only legitimizing factor to the union. This is categorically untrue, and I'm sure part of the gay activism movement's struggle is to combat this silly assumption; but it's not an assumption you can just magically wish away, and taking this faulty assumption and acting on it (by forcing churches to marry people so gays can have the supposed legitimizing factor as well) is wrong because it unduly uses government force to rein in a flawed society's faulty assumption instead of combating the faulty assumption.

Oh but it does. When long-time gay rights opponents like Ron Paul come out in favor of "replacing marriage with civil unions" then it's quite clear what this is meant to do. The religious right won't have to be "offended" at the prospect of their government sanctioning gay unions with the term marriage, and all the connotations of acceptance and equality that that implies. The fact that you're saying this undercuts the Moral Majority's argument speaks to the fact that this move is intended to make gay unions more palatable to the general public by creating a religious ringfence around marriage. I can see Mafia's point about how transforming marriages into civil unions allows societies to refuse to integrate and accept LGBTQ people as equals, it's a strategic retreat but not a surrender. Government sanctioning of gay marriage has a psychological as well as symbolic effect that this solution you're providing doesn't. It's got to be disheartening for the LGBTQ community to almost reach the summit of acceptance, only to have a renaming of the rights they're about to acquire so that the government can recuse itself from ever having to forcefully come out in favor of gay equality.

"I'm worried that if this movement succeeds we'll have set a dangerous precedent for corporate control over policy.

They already have lobbyists, now imagine if this corporate petition becomes common place."

I have to say i entirely disagree there.

I've no idea what a company payed lobbyist does or says, If companies are willing to be public about what they advocate then i'd me much happier with them having the influence they hold.

At least then you can disagree with such a petition and decide to avoid starbucks if you wish... (that said, this seems to mostly be about saving companies money, rather than being in favour or against gay marriage, it is specifically against the complications arising from having state based differences with a federal law guaranteeing inequality)

ie if all state disallowed gay marriage, then no company would have a problem with the law. or alternatively, if all laws treated all marriage as the same then no companies would really care too much..

But by declaring that all unions are equal in the eyes of the law, the dovernment *is* coming out and recognizing the rights of same-sex couples. And quite honestly, plenty of churches will accept same sex relationships, allow homosexual ministers and even conduct same-sex marriages. Regardless, it isn't the governments place to tell a religion it *must* accpet someone else. In fact, "Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" makes it clear it is out of the hands of the government to try and force a religion to alter their practices, no matter how despicable (and don't bother going to sacrificing virgins or molesting little children or some shit like that because we know those rights supercede religious freedoms).

This isn't about what churches will or will not be forced to do. That's irrelevant. No one is proposing churches be forced to perform marriage ceremonies. The point is that the religious right will never have to have their government bestow recognition on gay marriages. That the community will never be able to have the kind of recognition that heterosexuals have been enjoying since forever.

Let me provide an analogy.

Imagine "marriage" is a palatial sized plantation. Heterosexuals up to this point get to walk through the front door, in broad day light, holding hands, no questions asked. LGTBQ people up to this point have been forced to live in workmen's quarters and have been refused entry to the plantation home. Your "proposal" calls for equality by saying everyone can enter the plantation home through the back door, rather than saying LGBTQ people should be able to proudly walk through the front door that up to this point heterosexuals have been allowed to do.

What is the point of this back door solution? It's certainly more difficult and requires much more coordination. The whole point is to make it so the heterosexuals never have to witness the LGBTQ people entering the front door of equal acceptance. The full recognition that they have enjoyed for millennia will never be bestowed upon this excluded group.

@Draug: this is entirely an aside, but while *some churches* may be happy to have homosexual ministers, it is also the case that some describe gay people as tempted to sinful acts, and that those who choose to abstain are thus the only non-sinners.

Thus having celibate gay priests shouldn't be much of a problem for such a church without having them recognize that homosexuality isn't inherently immoral.

"Imagine "marriage" is a palatial sized plantation"

imagine that this plantation is owned by the church, and that the government has built it's own plantation on the other side of town which it insists everyone passes through without any reference to that marriage place...

@Putin - No, I'm saying that the front door will be forever closed. There will be no more marriage in the eyes of the law, so the front doors are closed.

@ora - I agree. But no such requirement exists within every accepting church. To say that is a hard and fast rule would be disingenuous.

Tell me, what is the real objection behind recognition of gay marriage. It's obviously not the fact that the state is involved, because the state will be involved anyway there will only be a name change. So what's the point of this civil union scheme?

Heterosexuals get to buy cookies. Gay people are forbidden to buy any sweets. Now when it looks like gay people can get cookies too, the government comes in and says: "From now on everyone will have cottage cheese, see: equality". And the gay community is expected to be overjoyed that at least they get cottage cheese. And the heterosexual community is relieved that at least the gay community won't ever get to have cookies, even if now they have to eat cottage cheese too.

I have no objection to it. I just don't think it will ever happen (well not for a long time) and that this step could actually help in the long run by eventually returning the word "marriage" to the law. But the moral minority has too much political influence to make it happen right now.