An interesting
editorial in The Oregonian makes the case for civil unions.
After noting the failure of gay marriage advocates to listen and
respond to the concerns of opponents, the editors call on the state
(now saddled by voters with an anti-gay-marriage amendment) to pass
a comprehensive civil unions law:
Critics say civil unions exemplify the separate but equal doctrine used to justify segregation in the South, but it's a "facile and deeply wrong" comparison, suggests Yale law professor William Eskridge Jr., an expert on civil unions....
"[S]eparate but equal" was a legal doctrine used to mask inequality. Vermont used the term "civil union" to mask equality....
Some will continue to argue that civil unions are inherently inferior to marriage, but in Vermont, the difference is mainly in name. Those joined in a civil union are even called "spouses."
Certainly, as others have noted, this is the view of many gay-marriage opponents, which is why they, too, are adamant in opposing civil unions. But fortunately, when the issues is CUs and not marriage, a majority of Americans don't share their opposition.
Another editorial of interest ran in the
Roanoke (Vir.) Times. It notes that Episcopal priest Deborah
Hentz Hunley and other clergy:
hope that the current debate over gay marriages can be expanded to "looking at Christian marriage and what we think it means." For her, that includes the possibility of separating the governmental recognition of a marriage - deciding who is eligible for the legal benefits and obligations that entails - from the religious blessing of the union.
The current system of having clergy act as agents of the state is so taken for granted that we rarely think about the illogic of it in a country that has no established religion. Separating the two functions seems to offer benefits with few, if any, disadvantages.
A couple have to appear before a governmental representative as it is now to receive a marriage license, so there's no good reason why that process couldn't include having them sign on the dotted line to be married. Everyone would then have a civil union - whose rules the state could decide outside of religious considerations. Then, couples who wanted a religious ceremony to solemnize that union could find a willing priest/minister/rabbi/imam/shaman or whoever to bless them.
It seems far-fetched to expect this now, but good ideas have a
way of taking off that's sometimes totally unexpected. So even if
it's not around the corner, making civil union the new
legal norm may eventually be an idea whose time will
come.
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