could we save marriage as a purely religious issue by having the government register only civil unions?

6 Comments

1. Alexis says:

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   No, and this is why:

   While allowing civil unions for same-sex couples appears to be a perfectly reasonable, and even legally valid, compromise, there is still an underlying issue that it does not resolve.

   A marriage is, according to and in the eyes of the law, a secular legal contract between two consenting adults and the State. That’s it. It has no religious implications whatsoever. It can’t, owing to the separation of Church and State. Marriage also carries with it a significant and collectively respected social recognition.

   This is the primary reason why the very existence of "civil unions" in the first place is a fundamentally bad idea. Religion shares with (or rather, has coopted from) the law the word "marriage", a term and concept that is ingrained into the fabric of our society, and has been since prebiblical days. In eliminating marriage from the law by replacing it with civil unions, we would be allowing religion to usurp from our society a term to which it has no valid claims, along with all of the cultural implications associated with that term. We would in essence be granting the bigots who have opposed equal rights from the beginning exactly what they want: a "separate-but-equal" institution. De jure, it may be legally equal; de facto, it is not, and would never be.

   Since the bigots are the ones whining about this in the first place, if they are so petty as to deny a group of citizens their equal rights as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, *they* can change the word for *their* religious matrimonial coupling. They have no right to insist the law change theirs, or to coerce the rest of us into settling for a union that lacks the cultural significance they wish to keep for themselves. Marriage is something that belongs to all of us, not just the religious.
2. Teh Atheati Kitteh King says:

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   This is what should happen:

   Marriage should be a civil ceremony… If you wish to have a religious wedding you have it AFTER the civil ceremony… that way religions have no control over who is married and who isn’t…

   This is basically the French system
3. Jen says:

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   But why redefine what so many already have by calling it a civil union. Fact is, marriage is NOT church domain. It has nothing to do with religion. If it did, atheists and those of many other religions would not be allowed to marry. But they are. Fact is, the government should just allow marriages between two consenting adults to be legal, regardless of their gender, and let the issue of whether those people are married in a church or by a JP be settled as a private matter. The issue is not the government, but why a certain religion in general thinks it has some sort of monopoly on what marriage is for everyone else.
4. Narry says:

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   as a gay atheist, ive never intended to have a religious ceremony, i want to be joined with my partner in the same legal way straight couples are. your solution is the solution i’ve always thought makes the most sense!
5. mia delight says:

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   I don’t know the actual reason but for at least several hundred years marriages births and deaths have been registered with the government.
   I`m guessing taxes and census have something to do with it.
   The government doesn’t tell you to do anything they only collect statistics.
   ************
   Oh this is a same sex question…I believe all consenting adults should have the right to marry, whom ever they wish.
   The whole defiling marriage thing is really bigots, wanting to force their way of thinking on everyone.
6. Sparx says:

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   not only should they allow anyone with $35 to buy a marriage certificate but they should also add an expiration date. there divorce rate is gone.