In the eyes of the government all marriages (i.e. "traditional") are only civil unions. Thus, everyone is already on equal footing. You cannot legislate social acceptance.
As long as the government regulates marriage, all marriage will be unified. Fundamentalist Christianity (and perhaps other religions as well IDK) will not accept gay marriage or civil unions in any form because their form of marriage would be united with it and must (in a way) recognize it. That's what they don't like. (Or at least, that's a big part of it.)Thanatos34 said:Actually, gay people, (and anyone, actually), can get married in this fashion, it's just not recognized by the Federal government. Nor are they granted any privileges of it.
The way to solve this easily, though it is not, perhaps, the morally correct way, is to make civil unions have the same rights as marriages. It is a compromise, but I think it would work.
Yes, there will have to be some changes in the law. I don't think it would be too bad though. The end result is that gays could be married, but there is an important difference as I described above.cathou said:ok, but isnt that an hyper complicated thing, because you need to change the way we fill our tax at the end of the year, and everything thing else that is legal stuff but changed by the fact that the couple is married or not, and end up with the same exact thing that you just allow same-sex marriage but give the right to religious group to refuse to married them ?
This is closer to what the whole situation is actually moving towards, as gay couples can have the same legal status as a marriage in most states, just not be married. I also stand with you that we cannot force a church to marry couples. However a large number of marriage ceremonies are carried out in court houses, and these is no reason to restrict those.kawligia said:If marriage is not regulated by the government, then the gay community can easily declare people married in their ceremony or whatever. I am saying that the government should stop caring whether people are "married" or not.MusicalFreedom said:Well, regardless of the origins of marriage, marriage now is a social thing - not only religious. Marriage means a lot to most people, and not all of those people are religious. Saying that two peoples' marriage is fine if they can find a religion to marry them seems to leave out people who have no religion.kawligia said:Marriage only became a social institution when it adopted the religious institution. It was only in the last couple hundred years that secular government began to regulate marriage laws instead of the church.
Even in other cultures, marriage had its origins in religion.
Relax dude, under my non-regulation scheme, gays could get married as long as there was a religion, denomination, sect, or any other group that was willing to declare them "married."
But it wouldn't matter because there would be no tangible benefits for anyone to get married. Only the formal declaration of a "bond" between the people in question.
Should the state be allowed to marry people? I say yes, because the state is not supposed to be discriminatory towards minorities. My understanding of this at the moment is that the state can issue marriage licenses. I don't see why the state can't issue these licenses to same-sex couples
I just don't see this as a religious argument in any way.
The government would not care whether someone was "married" any more than it cares whether someone is your girlfriend/boyfriend. It would be informal and unimportant in the eyes of the government, even if it remained formal and important in the eyes of religious OR SOCIAL institutions.
Not all of us voted for Prop 8. Most of us teens who can't vote actually were against the prop in my area.MaxTheReaper said:I am disappointed in California and all those who live there.
You are right. That is a major problem.manaman said:Your also right that it started as a religious ceremony, but it has become so ingrained in society that it is not longer seen that way.
What happened is easy to understand. Painfully obvious even. There was a large number of gay men and women supporting allowing gay marriages. Yet the margin was still very close when it was allowed in the first place. With gay marriage legal they all got the marriages they wanted, and the support died out a bit. Without the original fervor in favor it gone, the ones against it where again in the majority and it was banned. They then tried to circumvent the ban by taking the issue to the courts and attempting to the judges to legislate from the benches.ucciolord1 said:It's good that they got to keep their marriages, but WTF Cali? Why stop gays from getting married?
yeah but face it, marriage is essential for some legal things, like if i die without a Will, but i'm married, all my stuff goes to my wife/husband. if i'm not it goes to my parents. Same thing with the insurance. And my heath insurance will cover my wife, not only the person i live with. If i want to divorce, the marriage laws have mechanism to dictate what goes to who.kawligia said:As long as the government regulates marriage, all marriage will be unified. Fundamentalist Christianity (and perhaps other religions as well IDK) will not accept gay marriage or civil unions in any form because their form of marriage would be united with it and must (in a way) recognize it. That's what they don't like. (Or at least, that's a big part of it.)Thanatos34 said:Actually, gay people, (and anyone, actually), can get married in this fashion, it's just not recognized by the Federal government. Nor are they granted any privileges of it.
The way to solve this easily, though it is not, perhaps, the morally correct way, is to make civil unions have the same rights as marriages. It is a compromise, but I think it would work.
Once there is no official sanction on marriage, a gay couple being "married" will not be any different than a gay couple living together as if they were married. They still won't like it, but I don't think they will be so actively against it since they are not required to "condone" it.
Yes, there will have to be some changes in the law. I don't think it would be too bad though. The end result is that gays could be married, but there is an important difference as I described above.cathou said:ok, but isnt that an hyper complicated thing, because you need to change the way we fill our tax at the end of the year, and everything thing else that is legal stuff but changed by the fact that the couple is married or not, and end up with the same exact thing that you just allow same-sex marriage but give the right to religious group to refuse to married them ?
I see the point your are trying to make, but that is a bit of a different story. As society changed they no longer felt the need to enforce many of the more ridiculous laws. The Blue Laws still exist almost everywhere. Anyplace where they will not sell alcohol after a certain time of the night, and where Sunday morning is also a no-no has a blue law that has become an accepted thing in the peoples lives, they do nothing about it because that is the way it has always been, and is not a major inconvenience.kawligia said:You are right. That is a major problem.manaman said:Your also right that it started as a religious ceremony, but it has become so ingrained in society that it is not longer seen that way.
It might work out in the end though. How long did it take to finally get the "Blue Laws" off the books? Centuries because they were so ingrained as well. Hell we still have some of them in some places.
I also support the judges and am not a homophobe.That Dude With A Face said:Yes!!!! Go California!!! I though for sure that they would give in to the ignorant masses and let the gays get married. Thank God that there are still SOME people with brains in the US.
I thought for sure that all hope was gone when Obama was elected...
I disagree. Consistency in the law is important but nothing should stay the same simply because it's the way it has always been. Otherwise we would still have slaves and women wouldn't be allowed to vote and there would certainly be no gay rights.manaman said:I see the point your are trying to make, but that is a bit of a different story. As society changed they no longer felt the need to enforce many of the more ridiculous laws. The Blue Laws still exist almost everywhere. Anyplace where they will not sell alcohol after a certain time of the night, and where Sunday morning is also a no-no has a blue law that has become an accepted thing in the peoples lives, they do nothing about it because that is the way it has always been, and is not a major inconvenience.kawligia said:You are right. That is a major problem.manaman said:Your also right that it started as a religious ceremony, but it has become so ingrained in society that it is not longer seen that way.
It might work out in the end though. How long did it take to finally get the "Blue Laws" off the books? Centuries because they were so ingrained as well. Hell we still have some of them in some places.
You could draft a will to dictate where your property will go when you die. Drafting a will is not very difficult and would take less time and effort than even getting a marriage license.cathou said:yeah but face it, marriage is essential for some legal things, like if i die without a Will, but i'm married, all my stuff goes to my wife/husband. if i'm not it goes to my parents. Same thing with the insurance. And my heath insurance will cover my wife, not only the person i live with. If i want to divorce, the marriage laws have mechanism to dictate what goes to who.
If you remove all legal signification of marriage, what will dictate all that stuff ? people will need to get married and goes to courth to settle the legal thing ?
I don't know. Laws are weird, and make my brain hurt when I think about them for too long.megapenguinx said:Ah my mistake, I guess I meant to say they are supposed to check that laws are constitutional (aka the right or not argument). I keep forgetting this is an amendment to an amendment (so shouldn't it still be up for review?). I still think it odd that they permitted it back in May and now they don't accept it. I still blame them, the voters who voted for it, and all the out of state influence that was brought in.