possibly a stupid question
9 Nov 2008 09:33 pmCalifornia (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, outside the knee-jerk homophobic OMG EVULLL reactionary crap. )
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.
( And about Obama's statements about gay marriage... )
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, outside the knee-jerk homophobic OMG EVULLL reactionary crap. )
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.
( And about Obama's statements about gay marriage... )