possibly a stupid question
9 Nov 2008 09:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouCalifornia (and several other states, I think?) has something called a civil union. I've heard this over and over, during the Prop-8 ramp-up, and always followed with "but this is not equal, we want marriages".
Uhm. What's a civil union?
No, I don't mean that sarcastically. I really am not sure. I mean, when I got married, we did not see a priest, and did not get consecrated by a church, and just had a secular JP do the schtick. If our state had allowed the judicial version -- where you go stand in front of the judge and s/he says, "okay, you're both agreed and neither are chewing the scenery so here's your paperwork, move along now," I would've been fine with that. My understanding all this time has been that if you do not get married in a church, but get married by the civil arm of the judicial system (since creating a union in the criminal system would be, well, less than thrilling), then you have a civil union. We even say it that way, too: "we had a civil ceremony," as opposed to "we got married in a church."
So what is a civil union, if that's not it? And are civil unions something you only get if you're unionizing with someone of the same gender? If Cali has civil unions, is this something that's an option to anyone, regardless of the combined genders of party A and party B? Or is a civil union some kind of 'mini-marriage' where you get benefits A, B, and C but not D, E, and F? Say what?
In some ways, sometimes I feel rather baffled as to why the churches and/or religios are so up-in-arms. I mean... okay, there's divorce, right? The Catholic church has strong anti-divorce leanings, and I've had friends who have been disallowed for a church wedding based on one (or both) being formerly married and not to the person they're about to marry. Catholics, Mormons, and some other religions/sects don't always recognize divorce as cleaning the slate even if they recognize that divorce, as a civil act, separates the two people when it comes to finances, shared obligations, ownerships, etc.
That is: yeah, so you can get a divorce and call it quits, but churches may -- or may not -- recognize you as "not being with that jerk anymore". A church may opt to disallow you from remarrying on their property, or refuse to recognize your second marriage, but it can't not let you get that divorce, nor can it stop you from remarrying. So churches do what makes the most sense: they say, "this is our policy, and it's up to you to abide, or not, by it."
The state doesn't tell the church it must allow/disallow the divorce, nor does the state tell a church to stop discriminating against divorced people who want to get married. The two items are intertwined by still separate.
Hrm, come to think of it, if you annul a marriage for whatever reason, this can be a way to get around the Catholic/etc "no divorce" rule -- but annulment is still, at the same time, a civil version of divorce as well. You may be doing paperwork with the church but you must also (correct me if I'm wrong) still go through the paperwork with the state as well, because otherwise you've only gotten the church to de-recognize your marriage, and the church is not the state, so unless/until you file with the state, you're going to keep getting taxed, treated, and listed as a married person.
So why aren't the start of things like that, if we've been doing the end of things that way without stress for long enough, now?
People already (regardless of state/gender) have to go to the courthouse, fill out paperwork, get a marriage license, and then get it confirmed -- either by doing a church wedding or by going to a JP. Then you take the paperwork back (or the officiant does) and it's filed, and now the IRS, the FBI, the DEA, the AFL/CIO, and whomever else can see that you've got "married" listed as your legal tax status.
If we both file for paperwork on the same day, and the following day I get unionized (man, that's awkward) in a secular/judicial process, and you get married in a religious recognized-by-the-judicial process, wouldn't the end result -- the legal definition per tax/census filings -- be the same for both of us? You did an extra step and had to deal with the mother-of-the-bride madness and I personally think you're crazy for signing up for that, but we're still both newly stamped "tax status: NOT SINGLE ANYMORE BABY"... right?
Seems to me that in such case, the only people who'd give a damn (so to speak) about 'marriage' being civil or religious would be those for whom a religious service is of utmost importance. In which case, the right to get married in X church would be an issue to take up with that church, and not with the state, which should and must keep its nose out of church business (and likewise). I can name off the top of my head at least four sects that have a general policy of marrying same-gender couples, and it's not like marrying in a different church because of churchy refusals is a new thing: this is why I attended three or four Catholic-Jewish weddings held at my parents' Episcopalian church, growing up. Both the Catholic church and the Orthodox synagogues were less-than-ecstatic about potential spouse, though the Catholic churches were (or so I was told) especially irked that Jewish spouse had never been baptized, let alone confirmed. (Well, duh.)
BUT none of that religious preference was a full roadblock to marriage itself. The state said, "here you go," and let folks sort it out with their own church, or not. Just like the state says, "okay, you're divorced," and if your church tars and feathers you for this, that's between you and your church.
So am I missing something to wonder why I never see the equal-marriage rights framed like this? Less of a "wah, allowing something so remarkable" and more like "hey, church and state have their own ways of handling breaking up, so let's use that model for getting together, too." All legal marriage-like events in this country already require state-paperwork step: the only optional part is the religious/churchy stuff. So you can be unionized and then marriagized, or just unionized, and if churches wanted to fuss hugely about recognizing someone's union as though it forces some unwelcome paradigm shift, we'd just say: you don't have to recognize divorce, either, y'know. Some churches don't, some do but reluctantly, but in no case does the state tell the church what it can or can't do.
Then again, I'm of the opinion that it's good the state can't tell a church what it can or can't do. What I can't get behind is this notion on the part of churches that it's perfectly reasonable for a religion to turn around and tell the state what to do. I guess some religions (you can insert exactly which religion is the most recent egregious violator) seem to think the wall separating church and state is permeable, if uni-directional, which makes for an odd lead-in to a concluding remark that you can't have it both ways.
This is also why I actually agree with Obama's statements about gay marriage, although I'm not sure if my take on his words are how he means them (but given all the context I can find, it seems reasonable enough). He says he'll support civil unions but not marriage: if 'marriage' is "a church-based word/act for declaring two people together," and 'civil union' is "the state changing your tax status" then for someone who's a strict constitutionalist (which includes separation of church & state, in case anyone forgot that detail), then the state cannot, even should not, dictate who can or can't get married. That's a church's job. The state can dictate who can and cannot do the paperwork for legal status change and all attendant state-recognized/supported benefits.
Maybe that seems like a fine distinction to some, but the entire balancing act of the church-state separation can end up being fine distinctions all over the place. Taxes, property, politicizing the pulpit, all these fine lines. Maybe you want a politician to jump up and down and say, marriage for everyone! but to me, that's walking (if not crossing) a very fine line into what could be interpreted as "churches should marry everyone!" and that's not the state's place to say. The state can only say what it will recognize, and let churches decide yes/no/more/less with no state interference.
Some churches will let you marry your first cousin, but the state may never recognize the marriage. Some churches were marrying same-gender couples way back before any legal recognition, and it didn't change a tax status but the couple was -- in the eyes of their church -- "married" in all religious senses of the word.
Hell, it's not like a church has to recognize even marriages that are currently legal, such as those of us who remarried after divorce (or even after being widowed, for some churches!) I mean, if you ask one of my cousins, I'm not really "married" because I didn't step foot inside a church to get that way. To which my response was, well, colorful. Not because I cared all that much, but because I knew the comment would get back to him -- intact -- and I figured he could do with a bit of color in his life. Or ears, at least.
(But then we don't talk to him much anymore, not that I've had to, really, in years. He avoids me mostly, which is probably thanks to the time I figured out the best way to shut up the witnessing script was to tell him in lurid detail exactly what I'd done with my girlfriend the night before. Worked like a charm! So to speak.)
Uhm. What's a civil union?
No, I don't mean that sarcastically. I really am not sure. I mean, when I got married, we did not see a priest, and did not get consecrated by a church, and just had a secular JP do the schtick. If our state had allowed the judicial version -- where you go stand in front of the judge and s/he says, "okay, you're both agreed and neither are chewing the scenery so here's your paperwork, move along now," I would've been fine with that. My understanding all this time has been that if you do not get married in a church, but get married by the civil arm of the judicial system (since creating a union in the criminal system would be, well, less than thrilling), then you have a civil union. We even say it that way, too: "we had a civil ceremony," as opposed to "we got married in a church."
So what is a civil union, if that's not it? And are civil unions something you only get if you're unionizing with someone of the same gender? If Cali has civil unions, is this something that's an option to anyone, regardless of the combined genders of party A and party B? Or is a civil union some kind of 'mini-marriage' where you get benefits A, B, and C but not D, E, and F? Say what?
In some ways, sometimes I feel rather baffled as to why the churches and/or religios are so up-in-arms. I mean... okay, there's divorce, right? The Catholic church has strong anti-divorce leanings, and I've had friends who have been disallowed for a church wedding based on one (or both) being formerly married and not to the person they're about to marry. Catholics, Mormons, and some other religions/sects don't always recognize divorce as cleaning the slate even if they recognize that divorce, as a civil act, separates the two people when it comes to finances, shared obligations, ownerships, etc.
That is: yeah, so you can get a divorce and call it quits, but churches may -- or may not -- recognize you as "not being with that jerk anymore". A church may opt to disallow you from remarrying on their property, or refuse to recognize your second marriage, but it can't not let you get that divorce, nor can it stop you from remarrying. So churches do what makes the most sense: they say, "this is our policy, and it's up to you to abide, or not, by it."
The state doesn't tell the church it must allow/disallow the divorce, nor does the state tell a church to stop discriminating against divorced people who want to get married. The two items are intertwined by still separate.
Hrm, come to think of it, if you annul a marriage for whatever reason, this can be a way to get around the Catholic/etc "no divorce" rule -- but annulment is still, at the same time, a civil version of divorce as well. You may be doing paperwork with the church but you must also (correct me if I'm wrong) still go through the paperwork with the state as well, because otherwise you've only gotten the church to de-recognize your marriage, and the church is not the state, so unless/until you file with the state, you're going to keep getting taxed, treated, and listed as a married person.
So why aren't the start of things like that, if we've been doing the end of things that way without stress for long enough, now?
People already (regardless of state/gender) have to go to the courthouse, fill out paperwork, get a marriage license, and then get it confirmed -- either by doing a church wedding or by going to a JP. Then you take the paperwork back (or the officiant does) and it's filed, and now the IRS, the FBI, the DEA, the AFL/CIO, and whomever else can see that you've got "married" listed as your legal tax status.
If we both file for paperwork on the same day, and the following day I get unionized (man, that's awkward) in a secular/judicial process, and you get married in a religious recognized-by-the-judicial process, wouldn't the end result -- the legal definition per tax/census filings -- be the same for both of us? You did an extra step and had to deal with the mother-of-the-bride madness and I personally think you're crazy for signing up for that, but we're still both newly stamped "tax status: NOT SINGLE ANYMORE BABY"... right?
Seems to me that in such case, the only people who'd give a damn (so to speak) about 'marriage' being civil or religious would be those for whom a religious service is of utmost importance. In which case, the right to get married in X church would be an issue to take up with that church, and not with the state, which should and must keep its nose out of church business (and likewise). I can name off the top of my head at least four sects that have a general policy of marrying same-gender couples, and it's not like marrying in a different church because of churchy refusals is a new thing: this is why I attended three or four Catholic-Jewish weddings held at my parents' Episcopalian church, growing up. Both the Catholic church and the Orthodox synagogues were less-than-ecstatic about potential spouse, though the Catholic churches were (or so I was told) especially irked that Jewish spouse had never been baptized, let alone confirmed. (Well, duh.)
BUT none of that religious preference was a full roadblock to marriage itself. The state said, "here you go," and let folks sort it out with their own church, or not. Just like the state says, "okay, you're divorced," and if your church tars and feathers you for this, that's between you and your church.
So am I missing something to wonder why I never see the equal-marriage rights framed like this? Less of a "wah, allowing something so remarkable" and more like "hey, church and state have their own ways of handling breaking up, so let's use that model for getting together, too." All legal marriage-like events in this country already require state-paperwork step: the only optional part is the religious/churchy stuff. So you can be unionized and then marriagized, or just unionized, and if churches wanted to fuss hugely about recognizing someone's union as though it forces some unwelcome paradigm shift, we'd just say: you don't have to recognize divorce, either, y'know. Some churches don't, some do but reluctantly, but in no case does the state tell the church what it can or can't do.
Then again, I'm of the opinion that it's good the state can't tell a church what it can or can't do. What I can't get behind is this notion on the part of churches that it's perfectly reasonable for a religion to turn around and tell the state what to do. I guess some religions (you can insert exactly which religion is the most recent egregious violator) seem to think the wall separating church and state is permeable, if uni-directional, which makes for an odd lead-in to a concluding remark that you can't have it both ways.
This is also why I actually agree with Obama's statements about gay marriage, although I'm not sure if my take on his words are how he means them (but given all the context I can find, it seems reasonable enough). He says he'll support civil unions but not marriage: if 'marriage' is "a church-based word/act for declaring two people together," and 'civil union' is "the state changing your tax status" then for someone who's a strict constitutionalist (which includes separation of church & state, in case anyone forgot that detail), then the state cannot, even should not, dictate who can or can't get married. That's a church's job. The state can dictate who can and cannot do the paperwork for legal status change and all attendant state-recognized/supported benefits.
Maybe that seems like a fine distinction to some, but the entire balancing act of the church-state separation can end up being fine distinctions all over the place. Taxes, property, politicizing the pulpit, all these fine lines. Maybe you want a politician to jump up and down and say, marriage for everyone! but to me, that's walking (if not crossing) a very fine line into what could be interpreted as "churches should marry everyone!" and that's not the state's place to say. The state can only say what it will recognize, and let churches decide yes/no/more/less with no state interference.
Some churches will let you marry your first cousin, but the state may never recognize the marriage. Some churches were marrying same-gender couples way back before any legal recognition, and it didn't change a tax status but the couple was -- in the eyes of their church -- "married" in all religious senses of the word.
Hell, it's not like a church has to recognize even marriages that are currently legal, such as those of us who remarried after divorce (or even after being widowed, for some churches!) I mean, if you ask one of my cousins, I'm not really "married" because I didn't step foot inside a church to get that way. To which my response was, well, colorful. Not because I cared all that much, but because I knew the comment would get back to him -- intact -- and I figured he could do with a bit of color in his life. Or ears, at least.
(But then we don't talk to him much anymore, not that I've had to, really, in years. He avoids me mostly, which is probably thanks to the time I figured out the best way to shut up the witnessing script was to tell him in lurid detail exactly what I'd done with my girlfriend the night before. Worked like a charm! So to speak.)
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no subject
Date: 10 Nov 2008 04:37 am (UTC)There is no clear divorce mechanism for dissolving these partnerships, like, a divorce.
civil unions being state - are not recognized by the federal government, so that whole married bracket with the IRS is a big fail.
Having a civil service for your marriage, in not the same as a civil union.
no subject
Date: 10 Nov 2008 06:32 am (UTC)What you were saying about divorcees not being allowed to remarry in the Catholic church was pretty much the crux of my argument in the "teh gayz will sue the churches if we don't let them get married here" debate. Hello - does the Catholic church get sued now for not letting divorcees marry in the church? That, and the notion that the rights of the church do not EVER supercede the rights of the people in an alleged democracy. But I think that argument fell flat when I started throwing down with names of theocratic nations where people who really wanted to live in a Good Christian Nation could go. Sorry, Vatican City - I did my best to shore up your population numbers.
no subject
Date: 10 Nov 2008 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Nov 2008 01:40 pm (UTC)But they are not recognized by the federal government as "real" marriages." The problem here is not just that the church opposes gays (because not all of them do,) but that the government is mixing lines between the civil and federal components of marriage, and promoting the rights of some churches (theirs) to confer that status over other churches.
Obviously I don't agree that all churches should be able to confer legal rights and statuses any way they want. There are plenty of cult marital practices I'm not a big fan of; I'm pretty mixed feelings on the practice of polygamy, and just because some crazy guy has a cult where you can spiritually marry a cow doesn't make that a real marriage. But then the question is why we seem to think that legal marriage happens in churches at all.
I do not know the specific legalities of marriage in America because I have never gotten married myself. I do know that in France, they do have a system more like you describe -- that couples go sign a registry in a governmental office to change their legal status, then go out and have whatever ceremony they prefer. If America has such a two-part system, and if you call the governmental/legal part "civil union" per se, then the problem is not that gay couples want the religious component and can't get it; it's that the gay "civil union" being offered is a second-class alternative which does not confer all the legal rights and benefits of a male/female "civil union." Which is why framing the debate in terms of religious marriages-vs-legal civil unions is so misleading, as you have observed.
no subject
Date: 10 Nov 2008 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 11 Nov 2008 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Nov 2008 02:59 am (UTC)I would guess it's a state-based contract and it's nullified in the same way you dissolve a contract. Which, come to think of it, isn't all that different from the basic mechanism of divorce -- except for the issue of time-limits concerning major property and children. Oh, and they don't ask you whether you've slept with your business partner in the past six months prior to dissolution. Heh.
Gotcha on the state/fed; I recalled someone mentioning that when DC first allowed civil unions. Seemed to me to be rather bizarre, frankly. You pay joint state taxes but federally you're still single? That's got to be hell on wheels for everyone but the CPAs out there, I'd think.
no subject
Date: 13 Nov 2008 03:04 am (UTC)Cripes. Talk about cherry-picking. Who comes up with this stuff? "Okay, marriage-lite means two from column A, and only one from column B..."
As for the additional paperwork and all that, I recall looking at that kind of right of attorney and all that jazz in case I didn't marry but still wanted to retain the spousal rights in our relationship. It was a freaking nightmare, and obviously designed to just make "go get married" the simplest option.
Which I eventually did, having that option, but also because I'm too damned lazy to exercise alternates. I never changed my name for marriage not because I'm all that about my family name, but because I couldn't be bothered to deal with SSA and the courts and the paperwork required. Bleah.
But that's just rambling, when what I really want to say is: my condolences about your aunt. *hugs* etc.
no subject
Date: 13 Nov 2008 03:08 am (UTC)And it doesn't help, it seems to me, that in dealing with Prop-8, I can't recall a single ad from the "No on 8" crowd that addressed religious fears directly. Maybe I missed it, but it seems to me that sure, we all want to believe we're for fairness and non-discrimination, but racist folks in the 50s also believed they were acting fairly to advocate "separate but equal" -- you can't argue that someone should get equal rights with someone who doesn't see that person as equal in the first place.
Meanwhile the Yes-on-8 did appear to be running ads talking about how "your church can be sued if it refuses to marry teh ghey!" ...
Because for all the question of how do we frame something, the fact remains that for a large number of people, the framework was, is, and probably will remain, religious. Personally, I think Olbermann's take on it (that it's a question of 'love' above all) may be the closest to what might sway a religious person. Dunno. Still.
no subject
Date: 13 Nov 2008 03:08 am (UTC)