• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Civil Unions

Do you oppose Civil Unions?

  • Yes

    Votes: 7 22.6%
  • No

    Votes: 24 77.4%

  • Total voters
    31
I generally agree with this argument.

Get the government out of marriage all together.

Give every couple, no matter sexual orientation, race, religion, whatever government recognition as a civil union with all the benefits therein and leave the religious aspect of marriage to those individuals.

So if you belong to a church that will marry two gay people, great.

If you're a church that doesn't want to marry two gay people... you get the picture everyone wins.
 
"Civil union" sounds like official friendship. If people didn't know it's a marriage substitute in advance, they'd think the same thing.

Marriage is a romantic, artistic relationship that's meant to guarantee duty of care towards children. It only applies to people who can internally have children. You can go back to the paleolithic era to study the history of marriage to understand this.

If people want to say that marriage "evolves" over time, then language is unreliable. You might as well believe in total anarchy.
 
DNV.

If civil unions come with the full list of financial benefits and social rights, then yes.

I don't care what you call it. You can call it cheddar cheese if you want.

Gay AMERICANS are entitled to everything that straight AMERICANS are.
 
Last edited:
If people want to say that marriage "evolves" over time, then language is unreliable. You might as well believe in total anarchy.

Language has always been and will always be fluid and shifting.

The second point does not follow.

Language is already quite unreliable in certain ways, and yet, we still have some semblance of order.
 
"Civil union" sounds like official friendship. If people didn't know it's a marriage substitute in advance, they'd think the same thing.

Marriage is a romantic, artistic relationship that's meant to guarantee duty of care towards children. It only applies to people who can internally have children. You can go back to the paleolithic era to study the history of marriage to understand this.

If people want to say that marriage "evolves" over time, then language is unreliable. You might as well believe in total anarchy.

That doesn't answer my question. Do you care what the government calls it?
 
I am interested if straight people care if the government refers to their marriage as a union. Tell me why or why not.

I don't care what the government CALLS anything, much less what they CALL a marriage. Why would t
 
I'm with Jetboogieman, get the government out of marriage. I would prefer to see no government recognition of any type of marriage or civil union or whatever label you choose to place on the relationship. Marriage is a religious and interpersonal contract which has no room for a third party (i.e. government). Humans have been conducting marriages for hundreds of years without government (or church) approval and there is no need for the continued acceptance of this asinine requirement. Free individuals have the right to marry whomever (or whatever) they damn well please.
 
Language has always been and will always be fluid and shifting.

The point of civilization is to overcome imperfection, not relish in it. If language is always shifting, that means problems are never being solved, so we're uncivilized since we're forcing people to assume the risk of falling through the cracks.

The second point does not follow.

Language is already quite unreliable in certain ways, and yet, we still have some semblance of order.

You just admitted the second point follows. Having some semblance of order is not having complete semblance of order.
 
The point of civilization is to overcome imperfection, not relish in it. If language is always shifting, that means problems are never being solved, so we're uncivilized since we're forcing people to assume the risk of falling through the cracks.

So what's your point? Perfect language and perfect society?

Many good lucks on that...

You just admitted the second point follows. Having some semblance of order is not having complete semblance of order.

And having imperfect order is not having anarchy.
 
I generally agree with this argument.

Get the government out of marriage all together.

Give every couple, no matter sexual orientation, race, religion, whatever government recognition as a civil union with all the benefits therein and leave the religious aspect of marriage to those individuals.

So if you belong to a church that will marry two gay people, great.

If you're a church that doesn't want to marry two gay people... you get the picture everyone wins.

Marriage is a contract. Just HOW do you get gov't out of contract law? Who IS responsible for the contract law associated with a "private" or "religious" marriage?
 
If people want to say that marriage "evolves" over time, then language is unreliable. You might as well believe in total anarchy.

Let's go back to arranged marriages.
 
I don't think I understand how you get government out of marriage if you also want the couple to have full benefits, which includes survivorship, medical consent, joint ownership, insurance, and tax returns. Government is going to be involved as much of the benefit in marriage involves governmental interaction.

I married my wife 26 years ago infront of a federal judge, no church involved.

I am a married man, not a civil union one. I figure same sex folks consider themselves married not unioned, hell 'conservatives' can't stand the word union and southern folks still turn their heads and spit to get the taste out of their mouth when they say 'union'... ;)

Marriage is what it is and we should call it by it's name...
 
That doesn't answer my question. Do you care what the government calls it?

Yes, since it has value only under the NAMED contract terms, if you called a marriage a FUNFEST, and a spouse a BILLYBUD they would then not match other laws that refer to that contract/relationship status, so they would then lose meaning in context.
 
The government must have some level of involvement in marriage because (1) it involves property, (2) more than half of all marriages end in divorce, which creates conflict over said property, (3) most marriages will involve minor children who, in the case of divorce, will also create a source of conflict.

Since divorce is prone to bring out the absolute worst in the two parting individuals, and since most divorcing couples are historically unable to amicably divide the assets, almost all divorcing parties seek legal guidance to officiate the dissolution of the union and division of property/minor custody.

Were adults capable of handling these matters civilly we would have no need for legal interjection into marriage. But since the available data suggests the opposite to be true, we cannot simply dismiss the role of the government.

That said, I see no reason why religion should claim ownership over a word. Add a qualifier and you take away all of the confusion. You have legal marriage and religious marriage, both entirely separate and unaffected by each other. That said, if you seek a religious marriage but fail to also acquire a legal marriage, there should be no legal means allowed to you at the dissolution of marriage, should such occur. Just like religious marriage by itself should not offer any legal protections or benefits granted through legal marriage.
 
Would you opposed to marriage between any 2 consenting adults being called a Civil Union at a government level for the benefits of marriage?
On this side of the pond we have civil union which is in all essence the same as marriage, Scotland has already proposed that by 2015 same-sex marriage will be available and I guess the rest of the UK will follow by 2020 if not sooner. I'm in full support but I think it's overdue that a same sex couple can choose to be married as opposed to forming a "civil union."
 
Would you opposed to marriage between any 2 consenting adults being called a Civil Union at a government level for the benefits of marriage?

Is a civil union exclusive or inclusive of a marriage? Can one REALLY benefit from simply using two words to mean "almost" the same thing? Why would that be "better" than simply using SSM?
 
dammit stop derailing my thread. It is a simple question. Do you care what the government calls it?

Of course. Communication is the foundation of community.
 
"Civil union" sounds like official friendship. If people didn't know it's a marriage substitute in advance, they'd think the same thing.

Marriage is a romantic, artistic relationship that's meant to guarantee duty of care towards children. It only applies to people who can internally have children. You can go back to the paleolithic era to study the history of marriage to understand this.

If people want to say that marriage "evolves" over time, then language is unreliable. You might as well believe in total anarchy.

Wow...a total lack of knowledge when it comes to language. Even in modern times it is quite evident that language and definitions change. Gay use to mean that a person was happy. Now it is used almost exclusively to refer to homosexuals. Same with "faggot". It use to mean a bundle of sticks...when was the last time someone told you that they were going to get a faggot and have it mean a bundle of sticks?

More evidence is that there are dead languages. IE languages that no one speaks anymore.
 
Is a civil union exclusive or inclusive of a marriage? Can one REALLY benefit from simply using two words to mean "almost" the same thing? Why would that be "better" than simply using SSM?

I am not saying one is better than the other. The question is more really to see if people, mostly straight people, care what the government refers to their relationship with another person as for legal reasons.

For instance if the governement stopped acknowledging the term marriage and changed it to a Union yet you lost no benefits or anything other than the title was changed at the government level to Union. Would you care?
 
The point of civilization is to overcome imperfection, not relish in it. If language is always shifting, that means problems are never being solved, so we're uncivilized since we're forcing people to assume the risk of falling through the cracks.



You just admitted the second point follows. Having some semblance of order is not having complete semblance of order.

There will NEVER be the kind of order that you are talking about. It is an impossibility. And why would you want it anyways? If there was complete order in everything then we would stagnate and die off. Chaos, for want of a better term, is necessary to our survival. It helps us grow and think and expand.
 
Back
Top Bottom