(no subject)

[desh]

Can anyone offer a compelling argument as to why same-sex marriage should be legal everywhere in the US? Specifically, why that would be superior, in the long run, to "marriage" being removed as a legal term for everyone, and replaced by civil unions for any two un-unioned consenting adults (of whatever sex/gender)? Because I definitely prefer the latter, but I'm not sure if there are good reasons I haven't thought of as to why same-sex marriage is actually better.

(Leaving aside the question of multiple partners for now, since it raises a different set of issues...)

Comments

[conana.livejournal.com]

A rose by any other name? I think it should be obvious that marriage as recognized by the State isn't the same as marriage recognized by [whoever's church]. I would not be surprised if this is more obvious to members of minority religions than to, say, US Protestants. If calling civil marriage civil union helps persuade people that seperation of church and state is a good idea, I'm all for it.

Or were you suggesting decoupling some of the benefits married couples currently enjoy? At the moment, the fact that marriage nominally applies anywhere in the Union is one of the key benefits. I hear it's not so awesome to be married in MA but not in NY.

[desh]

No, I meant a change in name only, basically. I haven't looked at an itemized list, but I have no reason to think that any given civil marriage benefit is or would be problematic for me. Least of all portability (and by the way I still don't get how DOMA doesn't violate full faith and credit...).

On the other hand, when we start getting into multiple partners, then I think some of the benefits would have to be decoupled. That's why I didn't want to go there just yet.

[bz-mahrabu.livejournal.com]

Though NY doesn't have same-sex marriage (yet - now that the State Senate is flipping Democratic, we can hope), it explicitly recognizes same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions.

[conana.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know; I was very pleased when that came through. I probably should have picked some other state, and devoted a separate sentence to pointing out that NY's policy makes MA marriage distinctly different from VT civil union. (I presume MA would recognize a VT same-sex marriage; I haven't actually heard how VT treats MA marriages.)