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Civil Unions

Should civil unions replace marriage for legal purposes?

  • The term civil union should replace the term marriage for legal purposes

    Votes: 13 31.0%

  • Both terms, civil union (for gay couples)and marriage (for straight), should be used

    Votes: 10 23.8%

  • The term marriage should be use equally for gay and straight couples

    Votes: 15 35.7%

  • Gay couples should not be able to have the rights of marriage at all.

    Votes: 4 9.5%
  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .
Jerry said:
California is the issueing authority of my marriage licinse.

If California does away with marriage, they are doing away with my marriage.

If California changes marriage to 'civil union', they are changing my 'marriage' to 'civil unuion'.

This dyrectly affects me personaly.
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How would your relationship change?

Would you love your partner less?

Would you move out?

Would you argue more often?
 
Tucker Case said:
I was going to say "Gay couples can't get married to each other the way hetero couples can and thus it discriminates on which types of couples can get married for arbitrary reasons."

The argument about blood-related couples being discriminated against is not the same because the basis for that discrimination is not an arbitrary one.

In other words, the state has a valid reason to prevent couplings likely to produce three-headed babies.
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The state doesn't prevent couples with other genetic diseases from marrying, so we should allow incest, by your logic.

Most of these inherited genetic diseases manifest in full within the first generation of procreation.

However, genetic diseases caused by inbreeding take many generations to develop.

Why is it that the state prevents the union that causes eventual genetic daises, but not the union the causes immediate genetic disease?

If there were a movement to ban people with inheritable genetic diseases from marrying, I would support that; just as I would support a movement to dissolve hetero marriages which do not raise children.

=====

I don't see where you think any of this is arbitrary. Clearly no part of it is.

If you're not raising children, the state has no interest in your union. It's as simple as that.
 
independent_thinker2002 said:
How would your relationship change?

Would you love your partner less?

Would you move out?

Would you argue more often?
Click to expand...

The reduction in stature would, to some extent, weaken my marriage, yes.

All sides of the issue agree that the word " marriage" has great intrinsic value as a sociological institution in the minds and hearts of the people.

All sides agree that "civil union" is less than "marriage", even when each have complete and total access to all of the civil rights as the other.

Reducing my hetero union from "marriage" to "civil union" is to weaken my marriage, just as increasing a gay's "civil union" to "marriage" is to strengthen their union.

This would be a damage to me, it would in fact weaken my familial bonds to some degree.

This is the part where someone makes the argument personal by insinuating that any weakening of familial bonds are the result of my actions or shortcomings, in an attempt to reset the standard procedure of isolating the issue so as to re-polarize it.
 
Jerry said:
I don't see where you think any of this is arbitrary. Clearly no part of it is.

If you're not raising children, the state has no interest in your union. It's as simple as that.
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Good point even if I disagree.

Just for shi** and giggles, don't you think that children or not the state should uphold the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness in this case? Since government already is involved in marriage anyway.

Just wondering about your point of view. Nothing up for debate here.
 
Blackdog said:
Good point even if I disagree.

Just for shi** and giggles, don't you think that children or not the state should uphold the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness in this case? Since government already is involved in marriage anyway.

Just wondering about your point of view. Nothing up for debate here.
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I want to support gay marriage. Truly, I do. I'm looking for the mainstream gay marriage group who makes gay marriage a Conservative issue.

Make it a Conservative issue and you have my full support.

  1. Show me that a significant demographic of gay couples are raising children.
  2. Show me that gay couples who are raising children would be in first-marriages if the legislation were to pass.
  3. Show me that gays couples in first marriages are not in step-parent homes.

Those are the hetero marriages I support.

I am eager to support the gay marriages which reflect the hetero marriages I support.

I'm not going to support gay marriage per-se in the name of equality, because I don't even support hetero-marriage per-se in the name of equality.

As a tangent, if we could boil away every objection to gay marriage other than religious belief, yes, I can, have, and would again, make a religious argument in support of gay marriage without misinterpreting or misrepresenting scripture in any way, with total transparency.
 
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This stuff is a very sticky situation, I can find myself on both sides of fence easily.

For one, I support gay love, everybody in the world is entitled to love, gay or straight.
I might support gay marriage but I do not support civil unions, period.

As far as I am concerned it's an "equal but separate" law and term, and if Obama ever signed it into national law, he might as well sign it next to a "blacks only" water fountain because he'll be sending the country back 40 years if he did.

At the same time, I think gays should be vehement about gay marriage and their rights and frankly, if it's not worth fighting for what you really want, then don't fight for it. If I were gay, I would want to be equal and get married personally. I think it's ridiculous to separate gays as something different. "When I grow up, I want to get a civil union, mommy!!!"...eh? They should just add another bullet in the dictionary.

Marriage
Definition 1: A union of eternal love between a man and a woman under god and/or state.
Definition 2: A union of eternal love between a (wo)man and a (wo)man under state and possibly Church if the church authority approves it.

The purpose, to me, of government recognizing heterosexual marriages is to give them tax cuts, incentives to have children. Our children are the future of the country and gays cannot, per say, provide that for us. But I think gay couples that adopt children/got children one way or another, absolutely deserve the same rights as married heterosexual couples but until then, I wouldn't give it to them to prevent any "Chuck and Larrys" trying to scam the government...
 
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ladilala said:
This stuff is a very sticky situation, I can find myself on both sides of fence easily.

For one, I support gay love, everybody in the world is entitled to love, gay or straight.
I might support gay marriage but I do not support civil unions, period.

As far as I am concerned it's an "equal but separate" law and term, and if Obama ever signed it into national law, he might as well sign it next to a "blacks only" water fountain because he'll be sending the country back 40 years if he did.

At the same time, I think gays should be vehement about gay marriage and their rights and frankly, if it's not worth fighting for what you really want, then don't fight for it. If I were gay, I would want to be equal and get married personally. I think it's ridiculous to separate gays as something different. "When I grow up, I want to get a civil union, mommy!!!"...eh? They should just add another bullet in the dictionary.

Marriage
Definition 1: A union of eternal love between a man and a woman under god and/or state.
Definition 2: A union of eternal love between a (wo)man and a (wo)man under state and possibly Church if the church authority approves it.

The purpose, to me, of government recognizing heterosexual marriages is give them tax cuts, incentives to have children. Our children is the future of the country and gays cannot, per say, provide that for us. But I think gay couples that adopt children/got children one way or another, absolutely deserve the same rights as married heterosexual couples but until then, I wouldn't give it to them to prevent any "Chuck and Larrys" trying to scam the government...
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Welcome to Debate Politics :2wave:

Your argument here is a shining example of how gays are fighting for social equality.

I would like to point out that the 14th amendment does not guarantee social equality, but legal equality.

Using California as the example, gays have achieved legal equality even in the face of Prop8. There is nothing more the law can offer California gays that they do not already have.

The fight is a sociological one, and as such can not be resolved by the courts.

When the sociological fight is won, the legislation allowing gay "marriage" will follow. IMO the California Supreme Court must yield to the will of The People. It is not the court's place to impose social policy.
 
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I accidentally voted the wrong way. Sans one for "the terms marriage should be used for straight couples and the term civil union should be used for gay couples." Add one to "civil union should describe both" (in a legal context).
 
Blackdog said:
I am talking historically. I guess you missed that little detail?
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No. I didn't miss that little detail. The fact is that, "that little detail" is Irrelevant. It is a word and it has many different meanings. Unless you can show that the word "marriage" is a religious one only, that it means only a man and a woman in a religious union... well, then your historical point is simply illogical and irrelevant.
 
Jerry said:
The reduction in stature would, to some extent, weaken my marriage, yes.

All sides of the issue agree that the word " marriage" has great intrinsic value as a sociological institution in the minds and hearts of the people.

All sides agree that "civil union" is less than "marriage", even when each have complete and total access to all of the civil rights as the other.

Reducing my hetero union from "marriage" to "civil union" is to weaken my marriage, just as increasing a gay's "civil union" to "marriage" is to strengthen their union.

This would be a damage to me, it would in fact weaken my familial bonds to some degree.

This is the part where someone makes the argument personal by insinuating that any weakening of familial bonds are the result of my actions or shortcomings, in an attempt to reset the standard procedure of isolating the issue so as to re-polarize it.
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"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
 
Bodhisattva said:
No. I didn't miss that little detail. The fact is that, "that little detail" is Irrelevant. It is a word and it has many different meanings. Unless you can show that the word "marriage" is a religious one only, that it means only a man and a woman in a religious union... well, then your historical point is simply illogical and irrelevant.
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Historically in the USA that is what it has meant, and so far still means. So much so the government tried to go before congress (a waist of time for certain) to have it legally and permanently mean exactly that.

Sorry man, you are indeed wrong.
 
Of course homosexuals deserve equal rights, and should get those through marriage. The opponents have never been able to come up with a reason against it that is logically coherent.

I don't really care if they went for civil unions as long as that is what heterosexual couples also received, but I think pushing for that is a waste of time. Many states in the US showed that they are against civil unions when they voted to have them banned in their state. I also think that trying to take away marriage from straight couples would just result in anti-homosexual people screaming that they were right about the gays trying to destroy marriage.
 
Jerry said:
California is the issueing authority of my marriage licinse.

If California does away with marriage, they are doing away with my marriage.

If California changes marriage to 'civil union', they are changing my 'marriage' to 'civil unuion'.

This dyrectly affects me personaly.
Click to expand...

Jerry that is simply absurd. You don't own a word or a term and it in no measurable way affects you. Nothing would change about your relationship except that a legal term would be shared by gays and straights.
 
Jerry said:
The reduction in stature would, to some extent, weaken my marriage, yes.
Click to expand...

No it would not, you cannot demonstrate this in any way.

All sides of the issue agree that the word " marriage" has great intrinsic value as a sociological institution in the minds and hearts of the people.
Click to expand...
What? intrinsic value? In what way? It's a word.
All sides agree that "civil union" is less than "marriage", even when each have complete and total access to all of the civil rights as the other.
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No, all sides don't agree on this.
Reducing my hetero union from "marriage" to "civil union" is to weaken my marriage, just as increasing a gay's "civil union" to "marriage" is to strengthen their union.
Click to expand...
Give some demonstrable example. Otherwise I'm taking the position you cannot substantiate this to anything other than your personal opinion on this matter.

This would be a damage to me, it would in fact weaken my familial bonds to some degree.
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Absolutely not true.
This is the part where someone makes the argument personal by insinuating that any weakening of familial bonds are the result of my actions or shortcomings, in an attempt to reset the standard procedure of isolating the issue so as to re-polarize it.
Click to expand...

No, this is the part where you need to articulate in some detail how this would weaken your marriage or your familial bonds in measurable way. I think it's in your head Jerry.
 
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