The solution to the gay marriage debate?

There is currently a move in California to remove the word marriage from any and all governmental references to a partnership between two people. The “marriage” will be strictly a religious word, and all government/business uses of domestic partnerships will be “domestic partnership”.

Here’s a different idea. Why don’t we make marriage a civil contract open to everyone and with the same rights?

Then people who want to can go and get whatever religious ceremony they want on top of it, a church wedding, a blessing, or whatever or nothing. People with narrow minds and behinds can reserve their religious ceremonies for small segments of society if they want to.

I don’t understand why people don’t want homosexuals getting married… what’s the difference? are you going to stop making love to your wife/husband because you know that somewhere out there George is making love to his husband Billy also? I mean how does it effect anyone but gay people? It should be a personal choice if you ask me.

@Marina that’ll be hard for the crazy Christians (like my parents) to agree with. and there are a lot of them out there

I’m glad you’re as sesnible on this issue as you are for someone so young and from a background like you have. The fact that you are embarrassed by your moms actions gives me hope that with every generation ideas about homosexuality are changing, we are evolving. God bless the Mtv.
However, your Idea of granting something like marriage but not marriage smacks of “seperate but equal”, a dark part of American history where people of color were not granted the same rights as all.
To grant equality in increments means you acknowledge what rights should be granted but don’t have the balls (excuse my language, please) to do what’s right even if it means upsetting some.

I’m sorry. For me it’s all or nothing. :)

This article appeared in the California press about two weeks ago:

Secretary of State Debra Bowen has approved for circulation a ballot initiative that would effectively get the State of California out of the “marriage” business. Ali Shams and Kaelan Housewright, two heterosexual Southern California college students yesterday submitted a ballot measure initiative with California Attorney General Jerry Brown that would replace the term “marriage” with “domestic partnership” in California law.

Under the rules of the initative, they must collect 694,354 signatures by August 6, 2009 to get it on the ballot.

Here’s the text of the initiative:

“The Attorney General of California has prepared the following title and summary of the chief purpose and points of the proposed measure: SUBSTITUTES DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP FOR MARRIAGE IN CALIFORNIA LAW. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE. Replaces the term ‘marriage’ with the term ‘domestic partnership’ throughout California law, but preserves the rights provided in marriage. Applies equally to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation. Repeals the provision in California’s Constitution that states only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: This measure would have an unknown fiscal effect on state and local governments. (09–0003.)”

Under an initiative, Californians can “directly propose and enact state laws and amendments to the California Constitution. Under the initiative process, a proposed statute or constitutional amendment must receive a specified number of valid petition signatures in order to be placed on a statewide ballot for consideration by voters.”

Said Shams in a January interview with the Sacramento Bee: “This is a compromise. It says ‘Get rid of marriage as a state institution. Make it a religious institution, keep politics out of it and stop the fighting.’”

@MCBeat That would not bother me. I think the aberration was not the judge, but the Prop 8 proponents. I believe you will see it reversed soon.

@osakarob Yep, I could live with that.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03

People are afraid their children will turn gay on them and ruin their lives.

Liberal conservative? does that mean moderate, or did you mean liberal republican or conservative democrat?

anywhos, answer: i agree with you, i think civil unions will end up being the compromise.

That movement is very much underway. It was even briefly mentioned during the hearing. Who knows, but i’m hoping it works out. Leave marriages to churches and unions to governments.

“basically a liberal judge in San Fran randomly changed the California Constitution to letting gays marry,”

Sorry, but that is far, far, far from the truth.

It was not a “liberal judge;” it was the California Supreme Court. And it wasn’t a “random change”- it was the court doing exactly what it is supposed to do- preventing a minority from being discriminated against by the tyranny of the majority, by ruling that the restrictions on marriage violated the Equal Protection clause in the Constitution.

I also believe civil unions are the answer. Get the churches out of the legal aspect of domestic partnerships altogether.

“so I’m a liberal conservative”

Are you also a black white man? A straight gay man? A male woman? A tall short person?

Separate but equal is bullshit. Always has been, always will be. Homosexuals are not a fringe group to be given something-like-marriage-but-not to appease them. They are PEOPLE, entitled to EXACTLY the same rights and privelidges as all other people.

If the government can’t give a certain right (“marriage”) to everyone, it shouldn’t be giving it to anyone. Civil unions for all, or marriages for all. Period.

I’m all for the current solution of doing away with marriage when it comes to the legal term and having everyone in a civil union or domestic partnership or whatever. But everyone has to have the same name for their union because otherwise, as mentioned, you fall into the separate but equal trap. We, as a nation, have already noted that separate is inherently unequal.

@dalton see that’s what I’m talking about. Isn’t that fundamentally unconstituional? As much as parents think they have the right, they don’t. If your child is gay there’s nothing you can do about it and it’s one’s duty to support them in whatever they persue.

@crisw: “Get the churches out of the legal aspect of domestic partnerships altogether.”

I’m a bit more extreme. I believe if a church performs a marriage between a man and a woman it should be required by law to do the same for two men or two wiomen and god has to sit there and take it.~

First: the justices did not “randomly change” the California constitution. A lawsuit was brought by people who thought that only allowing straight people to marry was a violation of the state constitution’s guarantees about equal rights, and the justices agreed.

Second: in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v Board of Education, it was established that separate but equal accommodations are inherently unequal.

If you want equality, the only way you’re going to get it is to make sure that all legally married couples have the same legal status.

@breedmitch: doing that is a violation of the First Amendment.

@cwilbur: Of course it is, hence the tilde. :)