Quote:
Originally Posted by trekchu
You sort of missed the point. What you propose IS equality legislation, and the lack of equal rights for everyone is what makes it necessary. No matter if you call it marriage, civil union or the Big Mac Companionship, the denial of equal rights and legal protection for same-sex couples is denying civil rights, plain and simple.
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No, it's not. Marriage is not a right. The laws about real marriage (man/woman) are filled with
arbitrary requirements (age, relatedness, etc). What the state grants is a license. A State cannot grant a "right," a right you have in the absence of the government. States can only take away rights, not grant them. In the US you are not granted free speech, the government is DISALLOWED to interfere with your free speech.
Huge difference.
A gay man has the exact same rights WRT marriage as I do. I could (and did) marry a woman, and a gay guy can marry a woman, too. He can't marry a man, but neither could I. No discrimination. No civil rights violated since marriage is not a civil right. The legal benefits can be had for any couple as a contract, they simply have to pay a lawyer to draw it up. The only down side is it costs more than a marriage license (we had friends that were not going to get married, but it was easier than drawing up the contracts to be married in all but reality, so they got married instead).
That's why a law needs to be passed to allow them a civil union. A law must be passed because it is a statutory issue, not a rights issue. Any claim of rights violation pretty much requires using the word "love," which presents a huge can of worms (a court decision that marriage would be a right would HAVE to say that the problem is that a gay man cannot marry who he LOVES, since he has the exact same "rights" to marry as any other man. Add in that "love" in a court ruling, and it begs the question why any "love" can be abridged (why not marry 10 people, or your sister? If the real right is to "marry who you love."). Better to treat it as the non-right it is, and pass a LAW instead of trying to legislate in court which will certainly have unintended consequences.