What if straight people had civil unions?

What if no one had legal marriage and both gay and straight people had civil unions? Would gays be content since they would be treated equal, or would they absolutely insist on it being called "marriage"?

 

Well I have a civil union! That is all marriage is these days. I did take my vows before the Church and on that day I made a covenant before God.

For me there are two things. First and foremost is my covenant before God that means nothing to the state and then there is my government contract that obligates me if my spouse and I should part to be at the mercy of the court.

These are separate things and I honestly don't know why we cant just change the laws to all civil unions and we can call it what we want.

Question? In a divorce who gets screwed in a gay marriage? The top or the fem bottom? What if they switch up? What if it is oral only? Man; judges are going to have a hard time and I guess the female role will be given to whoever loses the arm wrestling contest!

So the looooser of the contest will get the home and alimony! Welcome to my world! Does not matter if the weaker one was at fault the majority of the time they will get the gold mine while the stronger gets the shaft.

 

What do you think?

Do you think in a world where everybody had civil unions gay people would want to have something called "marriage" just so they could be singled out as different under the the law?

You seem to start ten threads a day on the subject of gay people. If you're going to do this could you at least make some attempt at making them make sense and not just be, playground level, vitriol?

 

That's the way it should be viewed in the eyes of the government.
Leave marriage to the religious folks.

 

I think you're making the mistake of heterosexualizing homosexual relationships. There isn't necessarily any notion of male and female "roles" in relationships where people want them to be "male and male" or "female and female".

I've spoken to gay friends at length about the dynamics and sometimes the "top" stays at home and keeps the house up together while the "bottom" goes out and runs a successful business.

Mostly though, when you see people as humans and not just stereotypes you'll get that most couples just play to their strengths in order to get by in the world.

If you have community property laws, allocating assets isn't that daunting a task also if one partner has stayed behind and built a home that the other, who maybe goes out and earns a good living, has the luxury of coming back to each night then it's not hard to see a case for alimony especially where kids are involved.

Beyond that, this kind of thing is not only demeaning to gays but to anybody who organizes their life outside of some kind of 1950s gender-conforming stereotype. I have a cousin who's wife is a top (and I mean top Q.C. Barrister) lawyer. She goes out and pulls in the, considerable pennies, while he stays home and looks after the kids which he loves. I suppose you could say he's "effeminate" in his tastes but he's 100% heterosexual.

 

'Marriage' isn't owned by "religious folks", some of whom also happen to be same-sex couples. I hold the position that religious organizations should retain control over their ability to withhold the rites of "holy matrimony" from any couple they deem unfit. They don't owe me an explanation for why they consider them unfit. It's their prerogative as a religiuos practice in that context.

That said, no one is going to force me to stop calling my marriage to my same-sex husband a 'marriage'. I'm not going to cede my freedom of speech to anyone merely because it offends them.

If the only thing government provided was civil unions, that would be acceptable to me, at least as a hypothetical situation absent any other context.

Trouble is, "civil unions" replacing marriage isn't going to happen in a vacuum. It would be a matter of considerabl public debate, with what I expect would be a considerable fuss made by the "protect marriage" crowd, wailing that government is somehow "taking away" their marriages by ceasing recognition of them under that label. I also expect we would see attempts to exclude same-sex couples from "civil unions" as well.

The reason: For the "protect marriage" crowd, this is about not giving same-sex relationships any form of legal or societal status, because they view them as a threat "family values" and heterosexual relationships - with or without government recognition. <- That's straight from one prominent horse's mouth, by the way.

 

Good post.

Not to mention the idea of courts making divorce rulings based on sexual positions = ROFLMAO!

 

No I am not. That was my point. Who will the judge discriminate against?

 

what about none of the above

the govt is to view us as individuals so they have no business in civil unions or marriage

 

A good judge will use discrimination (in a positive sense) to make sure everybody gets the best out the deal.

More and more couples gay and straight are organizing their lives in ways which, admittedly, probably don't follow the established male (breadwinner) female (homemaker) pattern. In these instances the gender of the client has to be put aside and a judgement made on established patterns of, mostly financial, behaviour.

Where community property laws are in place, assets can be split 50/50 so alimony and child support and custody are the primary remaining factors.

 

Hey if civil unions can do that for gays then give it to heterosexuals tooooo!

Yeah fields are leveling and fathers are getting a better shake.

 

Traditional marriage (between a man and woman) is a fundamental part of our society and we support these unions because 99.9% of them result in a procreated family unit which is the fundamental building block of our nation.

Diluting this tradition to 'civil unions' in which anyone can qualify fundamentally changes our society as it opens these unions to almost any definition. Bottom line, if we change traditional marriage to a civil union we must accept any consequences that may result.

Religious folks will likely not be as affected as their dogma (for the most part) demands male/female marriage.

 

I don't actually disagree that fathers should get a better stake in some settlements but you're setting that up as a meme (that fathers always get shafted in divorce settlements). I can't argue against a meme I can only look at the facts on the ground and try to establish an ideal.

Why does it make any difference if these legal partnerships are called "civil marriages" or "civil unions" in terms of statutory effect?

 

I'd add that basically what I think you're saying is that women mostly do better than men in divorce settlements to an inequitable degree. Therefore how can that bias be carried over to situations where there aren't two genders?

To an extent I might agree with the first part of that sentiment but, as I have been trying to point out, what happens in situations where the woman not the man is the primary breadwinner as is more and more often the case?

In any event, has it not occurred to you that the more diversity the courts and legal profession have to deal with, such as men divorcing men, women divorcing women etc., the more they will realise that an over-arcing "one size fits all" solution is no longer viable and that each case, regardless of gender, will need to be judged, more specifically, on its individual merits?

This could be a case where the breaking down of stereotypes will lead to the, you know, breaking down of stereotypes; leading to more straight married men getting a fairer hearing further down the road.

 

Since I am not gay, I can't speak for all of 'those people' but as a heterosexual long married man, I can say, as long as it applies the same for all of us- I am fine with it.

I am in favor of civil unions, and religious marriages.

Now- let me ask you this' if no one had legal marriage and both gay and straight people equally had civil unions- would straights be content since they would be treated equal, or would they absolutely insist on it being called marriage?

 

problem is, over 50% of marriages end in divorce. so your number of 99.9% is made up nonsense.

 

If marriage were respected and honored by those getting married I might agree but what percent of marriages end? Supposed Christian marriages? To me serial monogamy is no worse than Gay marriage! Kick the people out of Church who are on their third marriage. How can Churches that will not shun evil have a foot to stand on?

 

Amen to THAT!

And I do not say that often.

 

Let's get back to marriage 101. Eliminate the tax benefits, inheritance benefits and healthcare benefits and see if gays still want to get "married".

 

No the 'nonsense' is spouting a 50% figure when you can't support it. It's a long since debunked claim but somehow keeps getting cycled around in the main stream media most likely by those who place little or no value in the tradition of marriage.

Here...get educated...

A spokesperson for the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics told me that the rumor appears to have originated from a misreading of the facts. It was true, he said, if you looked at all the marriages and divorces within a single year, you'd find that there were twice as many marriages as divorces. In 1981, for example, there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces. At first glance, that would seem like a 50-percent divorce rate.

Virtually none of those divorces were among the people who had married during that year, however, and the statistic failed to take into account the 54 million marriages that already existed, the majority of which would not see divorce.

Another source for the 50-percent figure could be those who were trying to predict the future of divorce. Based on known divorce records, they projected that 50 percent of newly married young people would divorce. University of Chicago sociologist and researcher Linda Waite told USA Today that the 50-percent divorce stats were based more on assumptions than facts.

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/d/divorce.htm

 

You'll need to argue with the cdc..................http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_25.pdf

they appear to call bull(*)(*)(*)(*) on your claim, and support mine.

 

Those tables reflect only the number of marriages in a year and the number of divorces in the year. Remember, the number of divorces may or may not coincide with the SAME folks that got married in that same year so, to draw a ratio and claim 50% of all marriages in divorce is either ignorant or purposely misleading. Also there is no accurate stat on couples that have been married long term. This is because they will not show up in the 'just married' stats nor will the show up in the 'just divorced' stats.

I GAVE you a link explaining the abject idiocy of claiming that 50% of marriages end in divorce. Read it.

 

and I gave you a cdc link calling bull(*)(*)(*)(*) on your claim.

 

first, I do not support the govt approval of gay marriage and for that matter I believe govt has no business involving itself in marriage

About pro-creating; you don't need to be wed to conceive a child

As a society we can agree to help encourage having children via exemptions and child credit but that has no relationship with marriage.

The govt MUST view us as individuals and not special interest groups. Rules and regs must be for the individual

 

Homosexuals just want to be viewed as normal I guess, nothing wrong with that.