On Civil Unions

[dsrtao]

The Democratic contenders for the presidency almost all agreed that having civil unions with all the rights and benefits of marriage, but not the same name, was an appropriate solution.

Each and every one of them is a shameful coward.

Henceforth, all Americans with a skin albedo less than an amount to be determined later will have the name of their citizenship changed to "Black Citizen". After all, as long as they have the same rights and privileges, it doesn't matter what they're called.

All Americans with pronounced sinister tendencies will be re-classified as "Left-Handed Citizens".

And if your BMI is greater than 30, all your official papers will have the title "Obese Citizen" appended. You may go to a court with notarized affidavits from two physicians at least one year apart certifying a lower BMI in order to be reinstated as a "Real Citizen", but why would you want that?

And the citizenship of anyone holding an elected office will be changed to "Noble Citizen".

Comments

[tpau]

can they all jsut make everythgn be a civil union? marriage is religious, what the hell si the government doign with it anyway...

[sareena99.livejournal.com]

You took the words out of my mouth!

For legal purposes, let's have something called a *civil union* for everybody. Religious and other cultural ceremonies should be separate and optional.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I agree.

I think that the thing should be a subset of contract law, really; people get married without realizing all the things they are signing up for. A real contract would solve a lot of that issue.

[hel_ana]

If you look at the English common law tradition (which is largely where both canada and the US get their legal tradition), going back to the germanic law codes, government *started* it, and religion horned in on it in roughly the 12th century.

It's the germanic law codes of the 6-9th centuries that spell out what the conditions (dowry, etc) for contracting a legal marriage are, not the church.

Now, I recognize that in other cultural contexts this isn't the case (Judaism springs immediately to mind). But accepting the right's frame (to go all George Lakoff on everybody) that marriage is inherently religious is to give ground to them.

[mangosteen]

I completely agree.... except for one thing.

To go the "get government out of the marriage business" route allows for a "the perfect is the enemy of the good" strategy. This is the tack that several enemies of same-sex civil unions use in order to try to put off the decision forever, while still looking like they're being completely even-handed and fair about it. I am neither fooled, nor impressed.

While I agree that that is where we should be eventually, the way to get there is to force the issue through as "marriage", and then let the semantics happen later.