PSMarc93:

"Let's get this myth out of the way right now. Civil Unions are unable to cover ALL the rights afforded to a married couple. There is no law that says "civil unions are equal to marriage." Example: inheritance. In a marriage, property goes to the surviving spouse. The cases a court has overturned that are very rare. Civil unions demand that property goes to the suviving partner -- guess how many times in California alone a family has overtuned the civil union's inhereitance to take over the property of a gay son or lesbian daughter??? Ready??? 100%. EVERY time a family of a partner in a civil union sought to overturn inheritance, they won. Marriage and civil unions are not equal."

UNLESS Civil Unions were EQUATED with marriage under the law...THEN Civil Unions would cover ALL the rights affored married couples...PARTICULARLY if it was a FEDERAL law!

"Then, I suppose the solution is this: a constitutional amendment that bans the use of the word "marriage" from any couple who has not had a 100% religiously-sanctioned ceremony. Anyone who's been united by a JP, by a minister not of their faith, by a captain at sea, or by a civil judge, is not "married." "Marriage" is a word that can solely be applied to a religious ceremony. If only you'd spoken up last fall, you'd have saved those poor Mormons all that money!"

OR...for LEGAL purposes, anyone who has had a civil union OR are married can be referred to as civil unions. I thought it was a fairly simple solution.

"Except ... it's not really about a word at all. It's about denying a minority group of people civil rights because another minority group disapproves of their lifestyle."

No, it's abour usurping a KNOWN religious definition in order to force acceptance of a particular lifestyle. IF, legally speaking, ALL marriages are called Civil Unions, then WHAT is the problem? Those who consider themselves married can refer to themselves as such and those who are civilly unionized can refer to themselves as such...but BOTH will be considered Civil Unions under the law.

Now if it ISN'T the definition of the word that's the problem, WHY is this solution so aborhant to you???

Why is it so concerning that the Mormon church, a tax free organization, got involved in this and the fact the Californians Against Hate, another organization organized as a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, exempt from taxation under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code isn't a concern?

Just curious.

lmwilker,

"I was "Civilly Unioned" (see how silly that sounds) with my husband in 1982. We were married without a religious ceremony in front of a Justice of the Peace who united us in marriage. I have been married to my husband for more than 26 years. I am way more married to him than the millions of people who have stood before a Priest or a preacher to be married and who later contracted a civil divorce, very few of whom, I am willing to bet, went back to their Priest or preacher and sought a religious divorce."

Indeed I do see how silly that sounds...HOWEVER, you are trying to take a term that has stood for a religious ceremony LONG before it was recognized by our government and used for legal purposes. I submit you will not be able to take this term away from those who's religion recognizes this term accordingly.

I further submit that those who refuse to accept the civil union term do so to force this redefinition of the term to spite those who define it in religious terms. An additional possibility is the future chance of forcing those same religious organizations to marry homosexuals even though their religion forbids it.

""Separate but equal" is not equal."

The point made was the legal aspects. IF marriage and civil unions were equivalent under the law, then there would be no issue.

You can not and you will not get those who marry in churches to agree to gay marriage.

Now you CAN make the terminology civil unions across the board, even though those who do so in a church get married by a priest. THAT might work.

But you are not going to win in taking away the marriage label for religious marriages between a man and a woman. It just will not fly.

"The legal questions are all about the legal contract of marriage, a civil contract with many ramification and benifits tied to the state. No one is trying to, or could, force churches or other cultural organizations to give religio-cultural sanction to gay marriage."

If Civil Unions are equated in all legal aspect to marriage, then your problems with legal questions would all be answered.

"What the voters of California said is that two people, otherwise legal and sane adults, are not permitted to enter into a civil contract with each other."

Uh, NO...read what the Proposition said...MARRIAGE is defined as being between one man and one woman. It said NOTHING about

Civil Unions.

"This is exactly the case where votes like this have to be questioned. The majority CANNOT be allowed to legislate away the rights of the minority. Thats why (amongst other reasons) the judical system exists."

IF this were the case, I would agree...but it is not. If Civil Unions are legally equated with marriage in terms of rights and legal contracts, then your rights could NOT be abridged.

"The California State constitution guarantees minority rights. You can't legislate or amend away minority rights unless you remove this protection first. Do you think its reasonable to remove protection of minority rights?"

There IS no removal of protection of minority rights if minorities have the same rights, under different terminology, that married couples do. You simply wish to FORCE the redefinition of marriage. I submit that this can not and will not take place because of the fact that the institution of marriage has historical, traditional, and religious significance to the majority.