(no subject)
Sep. 3rd, 2009 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gaudiorI was talking to a (moderate, politics-wise) friend this evening about gay marriage. He advanced the idea that everyone, straight and gay, should have civil unions, which include all the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage, but don't use the word. Instead, the word "marriage" should be reserved for religious institutions, which can then decide for themselves whether they will perform same-sex marriages.
This is not a new idea. This is, in fact, an idea which I myself advanced early in the debate, and someone told me, "No, that's a bad idea-- no-one will vote for it."
But it just keeps coming up. I've heard the idea proposed half-a-dozen times over the last few years, always by relatively moderate people, all of whom seem to think that they've come up with it on their own.
And I do know a number of arguments as to why people want to insist on actual legalized gay marriage (not the least of which is that it seems entirely likely to happen, and soon)(and all the difficulties involved in things like, say, Catholic hospitals not wanting to allow unionized queer couples visitation and adoption on their premises). But I find myself curious about the numbers.
So, o my (admittedly biased) sample:
[Poll #1452891]
And this raises the question-- if it turned out that a majority did favor this plan, should same-sex marriage advocates change tactics? Or not?
Discuss!
--R
(Upon request, I have added the following questions, for people who like the status quo in New Jersey, here. That's, civil unions for queers, legal marriages for straight people. Unfortunately, lj will not allow me to revise a poll, or add another poll to a pre-existing entry-- otherwise, I would edit this into the original.)
ETA: Okay, so, on further reflection, I clearly did not think this entry through very thoroughly at all. It is, as many people have pointed out, a bad poll, poorly worded, and unlikely to get results which are in any way representative of the general population. If I were being a real social scientist, this would have been my test-run, in which I found out all the things wrong with the poll before revising it, running it by another test pool, and then taking it to a large, anonymous, randomized sample, preferably with multiple methods of reaching participants of a good range of demographics.
Which was clearly not my intent. Honestly, I just wanted an ideas-check-- "Hey, I've heard this idea from a bunch of people, but I don't see any moves towards it-- howcome? Is it a bad idea, and if so, why, so that the next half-dozen times someone proposes it to me, I'll have ideas about what to say?" Or it might have been possible that it was a good idea, which for some reason no-one had proposed, in which case, I might have wanted to take more action. But I didn't have a real agenda besides finding out what people thought, and looking for more ideas.
So, my apologies for taking so long to respond to people's interesting and insightful comments-- I was somewhat overwhelmed by just how many responses I got! But. Onwards.
--R
This is not a new idea. This is, in fact, an idea which I myself advanced early in the debate, and someone told me, "No, that's a bad idea-- no-one will vote for it."
But it just keeps coming up. I've heard the idea proposed half-a-dozen times over the last few years, always by relatively moderate people, all of whom seem to think that they've come up with it on their own.
And I do know a number of arguments as to why people want to insist on actual legalized gay marriage (not the least of which is that it seems entirely likely to happen, and soon)(and all the difficulties involved in things like, say, Catholic hospitals not wanting to allow unionized queer couples visitation and adoption on their premises). But I find myself curious about the numbers.
So, o my (admittedly biased) sample:
[Poll #1452891]
And this raises the question-- if it turned out that a majority did favor this plan, should same-sex marriage advocates change tactics? Or not?
Discuss!
--R
(Upon request, I have added the following questions, for people who like the status quo in New Jersey, here. That's, civil unions for queers, legal marriages for straight people. Unfortunately, lj will not allow me to revise a poll, or add another poll to a pre-existing entry-- otherwise, I would edit this into the original.)
ETA: Okay, so, on further reflection, I clearly did not think this entry through very thoroughly at all. It is, as many people have pointed out, a bad poll, poorly worded, and unlikely to get results which are in any way representative of the general population. If I were being a real social scientist, this would have been my test-run, in which I found out all the things wrong with the poll before revising it, running it by another test pool, and then taking it to a large, anonymous, randomized sample, preferably with multiple methods of reaching participants of a good range of demographics.
Which was clearly not my intent. Honestly, I just wanted an ideas-check-- "Hey, I've heard this idea from a bunch of people, but I don't see any moves towards it-- howcome? Is it a bad idea, and if so, why, so that the next half-dozen times someone proposes it to me, I'll have ideas about what to say?" Or it might have been possible that it was a good idea, which for some reason no-one had proposed, in which case, I might have wanted to take more action. But I didn't have a real agenda besides finding out what people thought, and looking for more ideas.
So, my apologies for taking so long to respond to people's interesting and insightful comments-- I was somewhat overwhelmed by just how many responses I got! But. Onwards.
--R
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-04 12:42 am (UTC)Taxes are assessed per family, based on family income, regardless of who earned it. Health insurance policies could cover your family.
If you're in the hospital, your family can visit you. Adult family members can make medical decisions for you if you're unable to.
Children born into a family are members of it. Other children can be adopted into it. Adult children often separate from the family when they move out. Older parents sometimes join the family of one of their adult children
If a family breaks up, the assets and child-rearing responsibilities are divided in some way among the adult members.
It's quite possible there are problems with this idea, or places where it fails, that I haven't thought of. But the same is probably true of civil-unions-for-all. This idea at least feels like it deserves to be considered, even if it is ultimately rejected.
You ask good questions.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-04 04:39 pm (UTC)I also think this is a good idea, but actually advocating for this requires very careful framing, because right now in our society the idea of "we are living together as a household and are responsible for one another" and "we are romantically committed to one another and having sex" are conflated.
I think the mainstream is already comfortable with non-standard structures for households, it's just hard to get most people to say so because it's hard to ask the question without invoking the much more controversial question of non-standard romantic relationship structures.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-06 06:44 pm (UTC)Yeah. I mean, multi-generation households, employers and live-in servants, rooming houses, "Boston marriages"-- we have lots of traditional models of living situations other than nuclear family. But that conflation you mention is very much extant, in no small part due to people feeling that their values are at risk, and so clinging very hard to a "conservative" way of life which, IMO, has very little real historical precedent. I'm not sure what to do about that.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-06 06:37 pm (UTC)Personally, I think this is awesome and ideal.
Practically, I'm curious-- would this be a political possibility? And if so, how?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-06 06:50 pm (UTC)Could it be worked towards and achieved in 10 or 20 or 50 years? I don't know. I certainly don't know how.
Would it be easier to achieve than legal-civil-union-for-all? Or less threatening than legal-marriage-for-all to those currently opposed to gay marriage? I don't know, but I think those are interesting questions.