Posted on 03/24/2009 10:20:25 PM PDT by Steelfish
Getting California out of marriage business proposed as answer to Prop. 8 war
By Susan Ferriss
Mar. 24, 2009
At California's historic hearing on Proposition 8 earlier this month, Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin briefly imagined a scenario that might solve the legal conflict over a gay marriage ban.
What if the government were to get out of the "marriage business," Ming asked, and issue civil-union licenses to both straight and gay couples?
The justices agreed such a change would have to be handled by the Legislature, and discussion closed.
But outside the court, the question still hung in the air.
On March 10, five days after the court hearing, two California college students got the OK from state election officials to try to put Ming's question before voters.
The students are circulating petitions for a ballot initiative that would strike the word "marriage" from state laws and substitute "domestic partnership."
The change would keep all the rights of marriage now on the books. But it would nullify Proposition 8 and make the new partnership category applicable to both gay and straight.
"We want to take marriage out of the battlefield," said Ali Shams, a University of California, San Diego, student who co-authored the language.
Many people say their religion tells them marriage is between a man and a woman, Shams said. But many also believe gay people have a right to equal treatment.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Don’t bet on it. They aren’t even close to what they need for repeal and though some will be intimidated most of us won’t be. The latest Field poll I saw is showing them under 50% which means they are much lower than that. Right before the last election the same poll in OCT 2008 showed prop 8 losing at 44% to 49%. It passed with 52% of the vote. The previous law which was voided by the courts and wasn’t a constitutional amendment and was far easier to understand defining marriage as between a man and a woman passed with 62%. I’m not worried. If we stand and fight, we win and we fight. Enough of us will.
Very well put. Inheritance laws and estate and life decisions are another legal reason. Next of kin obligations.
The primary social benefit is in the creation and rearing of children. Screw up enough parents in one generation and your society is gone.
Great societies can not exist without strong families. Strong families can not exist without marriage.
But the commies already know that.
At least this approach is logically consistent, unlike the nutty “I have a right to special government privileges” argument.
“Now even a bunch of conservatives on FR think it would be the most reasonable thing to do.”
Enlightened people know that state-sponsored marriage came from a time when women were second-class citizens. It was a means of passing on property legally, and ensuring paternity. We no longer need government to do either, and women are perfectly capable of entering into their own freely contracted relationships.
There is plenty of literature, more than 20 years old, from writers conservatives generally approve that repeat this point.
“Your idea of a Free Citizen would make all variety of crimes and misdeeds acceptable as long as a contract had been agreed upon beforehand”
No one can take you seriously after this comment.
“Great societies can not exist without strong families. Strong families can not exist without marriage.”
Both can prosper without special government status.
I’ve been reconstructing and investigating the genealogy of our various family branches. Glaringly obvious is the connection that marriage plays in the progression and succession of families.
What are we to become... like dogs and cats, mating at will with no thought of who you are and what you came from?
This is like a bad sci-fi movie.
Governmental licensing of marriage being abolished is acceptable. Replacing it with some ‘domestic partnership’ law, however, is just putting lipstick on the cow - might be good for one date, but you can only milk that so long...
For all intents and purposes, the singular objective would be to circumvent through creative reasoning a constitutional amendment passed by the citizens of the state. The problem is not marriage - it never was the problem, the problem are those who try to impose their beliefs on the rest of us (IE: gay activists.)
Legislating acceptance won’t really make people accept them, and these contortions to reach ever further has done nothing but backfire on these same activists.
If an honest proposition was placed before the voters, to no longer have the state recognize /any/ form of marriage, I’d be fine with that.
“So you won’t let me play with your toys? Here I’ll show you!”
*crash* *snap*
“There. Now nobody gets to play!
Grow up folks.
I wish Abortion was given the same rights as gay marriage. States could decide whether to have abortion legal or not. Now 50 states are forced to have abortion facilities available. State should have the right to vote to get rid of abortion like they do gay marriage (We currently only have 3 states that legalized gay marriage and 50 states that are baby killers. Stupid Supreme Court. lol.
Conservatives are for smaller government Marie. Don’t you get it? Why have the government dictate civil marriages when the churches can do it. You make no sense as a conservative. Perhaps you are a big Republican Government type...I don’t know.
Why is there any reason for anything to be ceased? Licensing marriage doesn’t take anything from anyone who wishing to get married that fits the definition that can be licensed. What do you not understand and why do you care if the government licenses marriage or not? Gays under your definition can have the added benefit of not being interfered with by the government. Yeah for them. If they can not make a convincing political case to change the definition of marriage then why should the rest of us give up anything? There is absolutely nothing oppressive by having a licensed legal marriage. You don’t have to do it. Most who don’t it refuse to largely to assuage commitment and maintain wiggle room so not to say they are “married”.
I’ve seen very few that remain cohabiting without formal marriage for the sake of romance, laziness, lack of commitment, fear, those things come to mind.
I still haven’t figured our why you as an individual are so hostile towards the concept of marriage. So what homosexuals do not fit the natural or legal definition of marriage. They choose not to and they have every right to do that just as we the public and our representative have every right to choose not to endorse their chosen arrangement. Nothing stops them from drawing up legal documents inferring legal responsibilities to whomever they wish sexual or nonsexual. Do you believe the government should rescind drivers license requirements because some wish to drive but do not meet the requirements under the law? I hardly think so.
As for my concept of marriage I think it is pretty robust. I’ve been married since I was 21 which makes it 14 years and my wife and I have 4 kids. My wife stays at home and I provide for them. It is her choice. I didn’t tell her she had to, it just made sense for the best interest of our children. What other definition of marriage do you have in mind because the marriage license was just a formality, a necessary one but I never dated anyone without the hope of marriage. The document didn’t make my marriage a success but it did show a commitment that I took very seriously and I believe if a man and woman really desire to make a family they will desire to be married legally. Why not? My parents are still married, my grandparents were married till they died, my great grandparents were married till they died both sides of the family divorce was nonexistent. Divorce is the plague of the current generation that accepts no standards and demonstrates the same childishness you display. None of my grandparents were born into riches they were poor one spent time in foster care but it didn’t seem to stop them from building good families.
I can’t blame you for your faithlessness it hasn’t always been easy to do what is right in the face of a popular culture that has become increasingly hostile to natural families. Natural is only good when it involves grocery produce and trail mix. That said I don’t know why people believe that if they can’t get their whims catered to that somehow others who are just fine should have to give up something to make them feel better when they have lost a political argument.
I think we have given up enough to people who should feel lucky we tolerate them at all for all their whining and demanding of things that are due to them. Marriage licenses take nothing away from anyone it merely casts into law the definition on which people have agreed upon since the nation was founded and approximates the natural family arrangement and is generally beneficial. The law has marriage right and there are things of far greater urgency to remove than marriage licensing. The fact that it is the number one thing on sexual activist’s list when they are not alarmed at the degree of confiscation of wealth, and the real abuses of government power where things are taken away from them and others suggests a lack priorities on their part. The only reason I’m concerned at all is because they want to foist their fiction on all of us, by redefining marriage, by indoctrinating our children, by intimidating their ideological opponents by making fringe disease ridden sexual behaviors acceptable. They decided to fight this battle. We just are responding. We didn’t ask for this and we are in no obligated to change ANYTHING to suit them.
Thanks. You are right about those other considerations. The generation of kids raised in the aftermath of broken families and families that never were are is costing us dearly and those children are forever disadvantaged. I was just talking to my wife and she was marveling that out of all the grand kids of her grandmother’s that our children are the only ones that were all conceived after marriage. Most were born outside of marriage and the cost has been huge. Most of the grand kids still behave like children and now they are parents and it is largely their parents who are raising their kids.
bookmark
Who says it can’t be both? Not everything the government endorses is bad it primarily runs amok when it goes outside the will of the people. The licensing of marriage does not run against the will of the people. Most are completely satisfied with the current arranged licensing that was arrived at through the free democratic process and has not changed markedly for hundreds of years. Now of course the religious and natural definition goes back thousands but I’m not going to split hairs. It is not an either or situation. People can be married through religious ceremony without a marriage license. The legal weight might be in question but I do know that the people I encounter who choose not to be legally married are usually trying to wiggle out of some type of responsibility because I can not think of one reason not to be legally married. You may choose not to and that is your right but don’t expect the law to change just to please people who have some kind of radical minimalist idea of government. I’ll start worrying about removing marriage licensing when we have succeeded in shutting the IRS down.lol It is simply a matter if it isn’t broke why fit it? The government has plenty of other things that merit fixing. The last thing it should be doing is changing the game on marriage.
I’m for a discussion about how the govt, by getting involved, detracts from the sanctity of marriage. I say this as a conservative, not a libertarian. But you’re right in that we shouldn’t push the govt to get out of it and certainly not in response to the prop 8 issue.
Unfortunately, it's most 'zackly like reality for more than half the population.
The few taboos still in place regarding relations between consenting adults-- incest, f'r'instance-- will last precisely as long as there are social and medical consequences-- and the latter are just about out. A vascectomized father might have relations with his consenting adult daughter, on the grounds that no genetically risky pregnancy could result; all that needs happen is to make that their "civil right"!
“Conservatives are for smaller government Marie.”
conservatives are also very concerned about any attack against traditional values. If getting rid of civil marriage helps the gay agenda then it is a bad idea. It certainly would be if it is presented as a ‘fix’ for prop 8.
Susie,
It is about destroying that which is not them. Religious peoples have generally been tolerant. There has never been rampant violent against homosexuals in this country. There is no evidence of rampant discrimination in employment either. It is all a trumped up game and the cost has been huge in the number of lives broken and thousands ended in disease. Young men especially suffer a huge cost when they come out at young ages which increases the chances they will contract AIDs and other horrible diseases like Syphilis and Hepatitis but it isn’t nice to talk about those things.
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