March 10, 2004
(Updated) More Votes For The 'Civil Unions For All' Solution
Would Voters Take A Third Way Out?
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
At the tail end yesterday's report on the legal opinion of the Legislative Counsel on the same-sex marriage question, we mentioned the "bombshell that we and other observers have been waiting for in terms of expanding the debate"-- by which we meant (although we didn't make it clear) a mainstream legal mention of an idea that's being increasingly discussed in other circles:
There may also be another alternative: Instead of giving opposite-sex couples a "marriage license" and same-sex couples a "civil union license," the Legislative Assembly could authorize clerks to issue "commitment licenses" (or whatever designation the Legislative Assembly chooses) to all couples.�This system would leave "marriage" to religious organizations, with the state authorizing the issuance of the license and the religious organization performing the "marriage." Each religious organization could then decide for itself whether to perform "marriage" ceremonies for same-sex couples.
Locally, Michael Hall is the first we noticed who mentioned this "third way" of addressing the conflict, back on February 20:
... The state has no business discussing marriage or any other "spiritual matter." It has some interest in recognizing the legal prerogatives marriage implies for the sake of helping the courts figure out certain issues (such as what to do when someone's too sick to express their own wishes about their fate and has family and partner pulling in different directions, or who gets your stuff when you die).
Short and sweet? You get married in a church, but you get a civil union license. Period. Any two people who walk through the door at the courthouse get the same slip of paper, and churches marry whom they want when they want based on their individual creeds. ...
County Commisioner Serena Cruz has also been wondering if "there is a path to a new solution" to the question:
In France and in Mexico the government does not issue marriage licenses -- the only license available is a civil union. As I understand it, there was a secular movement in France that prompted the policy change, the government wanted to make it crystal clear that the state's document was a civil one.
In the US and in Oregon, marriage documents are civil and folks still have the option for a religious marriage in addition. What if the Governor or the legislature proposed that Oregon no longer authorized marriage licenses but only civil unions (that carried every right, privilege and responsibility of marriage) and made them available to straight and same sex couples?
Given the polling data it sure seems like that would be a solution that would capture the support of the folks who support same sex marriage and those that support civil unions as well.
Jeff Alworth made the same modest proposal yesterday:
... The actual benefits government affords to married couples are secular (and mainly financial). From a civic point of view, the contractural bond has nothing to do with religion or morality.
The complaint against government-sanctioned gay marriage isn't contractural, it's religious. By sizeable margins, most Americans endorse civil unions. The beef isn't really with the rights granted to the civilly-joined--it's that marriage implies a moral or religious endorsement. (Why the complainers don't complain about weddings conducted by justices of the peace isn't as clear, but let's leave that aside for now.)
A modest proposal: government should grant licenses for civil unions. County officials don't ask what will happen under the sheets, they just check to make sure everyone's over 18. Seems that reasonable people can agree that, really, government shouldn't have much more of a role.
Today the Associated Press reports that the Libertarian Party of Oregon endorsed a resolution calling for the same solution.
Unfortunately, the Party seems to have a nasty habit of calling it "our approach" -- which somewhat irks us, because we think that the idea will falter if it becomes wrongly labelled as a Libertarian Party idea.
It should be noted that we found this AP story via Rob Salzman, who expresses his support for the approach as well.
While in some ways, the sale pitch for this perhaps is tricky, it might be the most workable solution of them all. Many of those who have already weighed in have pointed to the recent poll numbers here in Oregon, and the clear majority that supports some form of "civil unions" to accomodate same-sex couples.
Of course, under current conceptualizations of "civil unions" those so joined do not receive all of the benefits bestowed by an actual state marriage -- so it presents a sort of "separate but equal" dilemma.
We strongly suspect (as do, we imagine, many of the others who have expressed support for this approach) that if we could dislodge the religious aura that surrounds state marriage by removing the loaded name itself from that legal institution -- and thereby also put some distance between the religious rhetoric and the secular debate -- we likely could convince a fair number of people to at the very least seriously consider the idea.
Now if only some enterprising citizens would step forward to be chief petitioners for a ballot initiative which proposed this solution. If nothing else, that would make it part of a more public debate.
Update
Paul of WWP backs the idea as well, although he questions whether it could ever really happen.
As we commented both here and at WWP, our own near-term interest in the idea is that it might provide a fariyl clear and direct way to demonstrate to fence-sitters and half-ways that there is a distinction to be made between the secular and religious institutions of marriage. The use of the same term allows the opposition to muddle the issue.
In addition, anything that can be done to communicate the distinction will unmask the opposition for what it truly is: Bigoted religious extremists trying to use the power of the state to advance their medieval cause. Most people, we would like to believe, while they may bo conflicted over the matter, are not bigoted extremists. In fact, we might argue, many of those fence-sitters and half-ways just might be waiting for someone to give them the clear path through to the right side of this fight.
Posted at 10:39 PM | PermalinkComments (4) | TrackBacks (2)
More In Law Enforcement & Legal Issues, Metro-Area Politics, Same-Sex Marriage, State of Oregon
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Libertarians of Oregon Acknowledge the Two-Way Street on 10 Mar 2004
"Get the state out of marriage" says the Libertarian Party of Oregon: "Under the Libertarian approach, the government would stop issuing marriage licenses, replacing
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Comments (4)
no one in particular on 10 Mar 2004
How would that work with federal law, though? I wonder if an Oregon "civil union" would let you file as married under federal taxes. Or would this have to come from the federal level first?
And what about people who are already "married"?
And there'd have to be dozens (hundreds?) of changes to the ORS (not to mention city and other local laws). That would be quite a ballot initiative.
Not that it isn't a good idea, I'm just not sure a petitioner could pull it off. It seems like it might take an army of lawyers working for the Legislature to write all the changes.
But then, in case you couldn't tell, I'm no lawyer, so what do I know!
Bob R. on 11 Mar 2004
To me, the sort of reasoning behind "civil unions for all" creates a confusing distraction. It's all boiling down to that one word, "marriage".
In essesnce, what we have right now, today in Multnomah county is civil unions for all. It's just that it's called "marriage".
There is currently NO LINKAGE between state marriage and church marriage. The state CURRENTLY does not force churches to perform marriages, or tell them who they can and cannot marry.
It seems to me that all this "civil marriage for all" effort is attempting to do is removed the loaded word "marriage" from the debate about what the state can do.
Unfortunately, I fear that for each person who is swayed by this idea, it will reinforce for others the specious notion that state marriage currently is somehow intertwined with sanctity and church. After all, if state marriage isn't religious, then why propose to change it into civil unions?
- Bob
The One True b!X on 11 Mar 2004
Well, part of the reason why so many people are swayed into the "no same-sex marriages" camp is that there is so much confusion based on the duplicate semantics. If the state had never called the union it licenses "marriage" -- thereby allowing an easier intertwining between the secular and the religious institutions -- it might have been easier to convince people that the state-based unions should be equal.
To be honest, I'm more interested in this "civil unions for all" concept becoming more public not so much in order to make it happen, necessarily, as to be a compact easy-to-understand why to start getting fence-sitters and half-ways to understand the distinctions between state and church marriage.
Gary Marschke on 11 Mar 2004
Bravo! Finally an idea rooted in common sense rather than emotionally charged semantics. If the desired end result is truly equality under the law then the only objections would be from those who still insist on forcing their religious beliefs on the rest of us. CIVIL UNIONS FOR ALL!