Posted on 03/06/2005 10:18:38 PM PST by neverdem
Connecticut is seriously considering giving gay couples the ability to have their relationships legalized in civil unions. A civil union bill took a critical step toward passage when it was approved, 25 to 13, by the Legislature's powerful Judiciary Committee recently, and supporters believe they have the votes in the House and Senate. Gov. M. Jodi Rell has said she supports at least the concept of civil unions.
Gay rights advocates have mixed reactions, since they had hoped for a law that would give them the same rights and privileges as any married couple, and call it a marriage. Love Makes a Family, the largest gay rights organization in Connecticut, lobbied against the civil union bill in committee, arguing that it would make gay couples "separate and unequal." But later, the group changed its position. "We will not stand in the way of expanding our rights," wrote Anne Stanback, the president of Love Makes a Family, in The Hartford Courant.
Ms. Stanback and her allies were right to insist that gay couples should have the same right to marry and create families as other Americans and to urge the Connecticut Legislature to call their unions marriages. But the existing measure goes far toward giving gay couples the rights and protections of marriage, and gay rights advocates also were correct when they decided not to make the perfect the enemy of the good this year in Hartford.
The measure would treat gay couples joined in a civil union as spouses in a myriad of important ways, including rights of inheritance and making medical decisions. It's an important step in supporting the stability of gay families, and one that should not be dismissed because it does not take us right to the end of the road: marriages recognized beyond a single state's borders.
If Connecticut enacts a civil union law, it will join California as the only states to enact broad laws of this kind voluntarily. Vermont passed a civil union law under court pressure, and in Massachusetts a court decision forced officials to recognize gay marriage. It is no small thing for a state legislature to take this step on its own. The constitutional rights of every American are the safest when they are protected not by the judiciary alone, but also by the strong support of the citizenry as a whole.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Freep the Governor, she has to veto this bill. She is a Republican and she needs to stand up, mention Oregon and Michigan supporting Marriage Amendments last year. Not conservative states
civil unions are just a way of having marriage without the m word. The next step of the homo-advocates will be to eliminate marriage as an institution or make civil unions and marriage one in the same by judicial fiate and thus subject to FFC spread.
Civil unions are no longer viable as a compromise. they must be opposed as equally as homosexual marriage.
ANYTHING homosexuals want to do via civil unions can be done with a simple cohabitation form.
The final iron of the "love makes a family" homosexual group is that "love" is NEVER EVER been part of marriage and law. The law has NEVER cared about love, the law only viewed all marriage (and divorce) in the context of production of children.
If it's on the Opinion page, it's not shilling. It's opinion. For shilling, see page 1 of the old gray lady.
I posted it as a MEATHEAD EDITORIAL. Someone added the sentence minus period within brackets. Now it's in the breaking news sidebar.
"Civil unions are no longer viable as a compromise."
Should business partnerships be unviable too?
you state a non sequiter.
Civil unions are to be a legal recognition of sexual relations which do not have the remotest possibility of producing natural chidren from those sexual relations.
Business parnerships are to make money. Parnerships have contractual agreements which do not change year to year by act of legislature. Businss partnerships are artificial entitites (part the reason corporations have to use lawyers in a courtroom, can't represent yourself if you are not a person)
Civil unions are essentially a legal construct of marriage lite which is dedicated to the production of orgasms instead of children. Marriage is an institution, society rewards the institution not the individual in the institution.
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
ping.
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