(no subject)

[gaudior]

I 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

Comments

[alaria-lyon.livejournal.com]

We had this argument in our household. Problem is, "marriage" is a civil term - the marriage of two people, two idea, two business, etc.

Matrimony is the "holy" or religious term. I am fine with matrimony being reserved for religious institutions only. But not marriage.

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

I'm uncertain. I wouldn't campaign against it, but I'm not sure I'd be really enthusiastic about it. Part of my objection is purely linguistic -- if we're going to argue about language, I want "civil union" to have an obvious associated verb. Married people are married. A couple who has a civil union are...unionized? United? And what if they want to call themselves "married" because they consider a civil ceremony sufficiently sacred for their personal beliefs?

[jedibl.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those people who came up with this idea "independently" years ago. I think it's great, but I also honestly think that it's even less likely to happen than "full-fledged marriage for all." I'm not sure it will be to the gay-rights movement's advantage to push for this option. I'm afraid that too many people in the anti-gay-rights movement camp will turn it into, "Wait, now you're telling me that I can't get married?" (or, worse, "Now you're telling me that I'm not married anymore?")

[navrins]

Tangentiating a little: if we were going to do something like separating the legal rights currently associated with legal marriage from the social construct we call marriage, I'd want to consider detaching them entirely from the two-person relationship and attaching them instead to "family." (Or maybe, "nuclear family" or "family household" or something synonymous with that.) Where it doesn't matter how many people of what sex are members of it or which ones are married to each other, only which ones are adults and which children... or maybe the right words are "independent" and "dependent," allowing (for example) a person with severe Alzheimer's to be taken into a family as a dependent.

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.

[weirdquark]

I've also proposed this, but mostly as a way to highlight the difference between a civil and religious marriage. So I guess the answer is yes, but I'd prefer for people to be okay with civil marriage being different from religious marriage and everybody gets a civil marriage if they want it and each religion can marry who ever they want to marry, just like they do now.

My parents were married at city hall. They have a civil marriage; they do not have a religious one.

[angstnokami.livejournal.com]

What's your definition of "queer" in the poll options? There doesn't seem to be an option that fits most-often-straight-lately-but-previously-more-leaning-towards-queer-and-sometimes-still-doing-so, which would be my answer (along with a yes). I suspect other complex orientations are also being generalized here...

[badoingdoing.livejournal.com]

I voted "yes" but with the caveat of "marriage" being reserved for whether the couple identifies as married, rather than whether the couple has done something religious or not. For a lot of couples, their marriages will likely be religious. For a lot of couples, not so much.

[q10.livejournal.com]

i'd also vote for full-fledged marriage for all, of course. i'd have to think about which of the two options i'd prefer if i were choosing between those two, but either would accomplish all the goals that i see as important, and either would be a massive improvement over the current situation in most parts of this country.

and i guess if a provision specifically said ‘“marriage” shall henceforth be a term reserved for religious institutions’, i'd have to oppose it, but i take it what you meant by that was that the term ‘marriage’ would have no legal weight and that the state would make no effort to define or regulate it - that basically any private institution or individual (religious or secular) could make its own decision about how to use the word.

[zdenka]

Is there a reason you left out the option of supporting/accepting same-sex civil unions but not same-sex marriage, or any other intermediate opinion between "accept all" and "oppose all"?

For what it's worth, I consider the word marriage important, and I would be strongly opposed to the idea of "civil unions for everyone." I have heard the idea proposed multiple times before.

[plasticsturgeon.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think that all of the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage should be separate things that you can allocate to any of a predetermined number of people. You shouldn't have to have a sexual relationship with someone in order to be part of their (non-genetic) family, and you might want one person to inherit your stuff and another to make your medical decisions etc.

[wherdragon.livejournal.com]

At the moment, I'll happily vote for anything that actually gets all couples the legal, taxable, visitational, etc. rights, whatever the fuck it's called. I think it makes more sense to separate out in law what's a civil agreement that states, businesses, the law, and federal goverment honors with various protections and responsibilites, and what's the religious ceremony recognizing two people commiting to each other. However, if it gets people to agree to DO IT, actually give ALL the rights to queer couples, I don't care if it's called "LOLCATS", so long as it's there and enforced.

I know I'll be calling my commitment to significant other of whatever gender "marriage", but that's a slightly different issue.

[khyros.livejournal.com]

On a lighter note, possibly we should make "Marriage" the wholly civil matter, and allow "Mawwiage" to be determined by religious institutions?