Outside the matrimony box
On NYTimes Bloggerheads, Jack Balkin of the Yale Law School and Ann Althouse at the University of Wisconsin Law School discuss an intriguing compromise on gay domestic partnerships: Take away the legal status of marriage.
In other words, a state could allow any couple to enter into a "civil union" or "domestic partnership," which would give them equal estate, medical visitation and property rights. The marriage ceremony and trappings would simply be a religious rite, controlled and regulated by religious groups, but having no legal meaning.
The issue is pertinent to Utah gay rights advocates who are launching a package of bills in the next Legislature that would give additional marriage-like legal rights to domestic partners. In the Bloggerheads discussion, Balkin brings up a slippery slope argument that will likely stall the so-called "Common Ground" bills on the Hill.
In other words, a state could allow any couple to enter into a "civil union" or "domestic partnership," which would give them equal estate, medical visitation and property rights. The marriage ceremony and trappings would simply be a religious rite, controlled and regulated by religious groups, but having no legal meaning.
The issue is pertinent to Utah gay rights advocates who are launching a package of bills in the next Legislature that would give additional marriage-like legal rights to domestic partners. In the Bloggerheads discussion, Balkin brings up a slippery slope argument that will likely stall the so-called "Common Ground" bills on the Hill.
The California Supreme Court says [to the state], you have already granted most of the rights of marriage through the Domestic Partnership Act. Why do you keep out the last five or six extras, plus the name marriage? This seems irrational to us.
2 Comments:
Why, this just makes too much sense. It'll never fly.
Actually, this is what we have now. We do not have religious marriage in the US, only civil marriage.
In essence, this is a proposal to re-name marriage "civil union" and make marriage akin to first communion.
I'm in favor - as it's a part of the growing secularization of our country. But do we really need to resort to such acrobatics because religious nutjobs throughout america can't stand the idea that gay people might in fact have the right to get married? All this for a name, a word?
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