Massachusets begins amendment process
I'd meant to post a thread about this issue as soon as it came up, but figured it'd be best to wait until the forum was a little less busy.
The Massachusetts legislature had already passed the first provision that it needs to enact an amendment to their state constitution to ban same sex marriage. The soonest that this amendment could be enacted would be very late in 2006, as the legislature must again pass the same bill, and then put it to a vote of the citizens of Massachusetts. The initial court ruling that started this whole mess demands that the state begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples by May 15th (I believe that is the correct date, it's definitely some time in May). No matter what the outcome of this constitutional amendment there is a two year period where Massachusetts will definitely be issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.
My question is what will become of those marriages if the amendment is passed? I'm not completely clear on the wording amendment, though I believe it only leaves wiggle room for civil unions, but does not define them, or guarantee them. Are these people's marriages to be subject to destruction at the hands of popular opinion? Is this the sort of nation that we want to build for ourselves where a matter of private relation, and personal rights can be trumped by a few hundred thousand bible thumpers who have nothing to do with you? This is not an issue to be voted on in my opinion, popular opinion can't dissolve anyone else’s marriage, and that's the way it should stay.
Civil Unions are not the way to go. I'm sure you've heard the rhetoric that they're offering up to try and placate us. "A civil union is just as good as a marriage, but without the name" they say, which is just simply flat out false. There is no set standard for civil union, it's the gag prize, undefined, and unknown, there's no guarantee that one state's civil union will be the same as the next, nor that any of them would grant any protections at all, and indeed there's no obligation for them to be anything like a civil marriage. I'd submit that a civil union couldn't even provide the same protections as a marriage even if it tried. Many employers offer health care benefits to an employee's spouse (or married partner) of their own volition. Is there any guarantee that they'd uniformly offer the same to someone's domestic partner? I certainly don't think that we can say that they would. Offering up civil unions as a compromise is saying no more than "please take this slightly lesser form of discrimination as a token of our desire for you to shut up about rights and equality" and in my view they are a completely unacceptable alternative.
EDIT:
stupid spell checker! Shouldn't you have caught the fact that I typed begines rather than begins? I blame this entirely on Microsoft! Yes, it's their fault and none of my own for being a sloppy speller in the first place.
I'd meant to post a thread about this issue as soon as it came up, but figured it'd be best to wait until the forum was a little less busy.
The Massachusetts legislature had already passed the first provision that it needs to enact an amendment to their state constitution to ban same sex marriage. The soonest that this amendment could be enacted would be very late in 2006, as the legislature must again pass the same bill, and then put it to a vote of the citizens of Massachusetts. The initial court ruling that started this whole mess demands that the state begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples by May 15th (I believe that is the correct date, it's definitely some time in May). No matter what the outcome of this constitutional amendment there is a two year period where Massachusetts will definitely be issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.
My question is what will become of those marriages if the amendment is passed? I'm not completely clear on the wording amendment, though I believe it only leaves wiggle room for civil unions, but does not define them, or guarantee them. Are these people's marriages to be subject to destruction at the hands of popular opinion? Is this the sort of nation that we want to build for ourselves where a matter of private relation, and personal rights can be trumped by a few hundred thousand bible thumpers who have nothing to do with you? This is not an issue to be voted on in my opinion, popular opinion can't dissolve anyone else’s marriage, and that's the way it should stay.
Civil Unions are not the way to go. I'm sure you've heard the rhetoric that they're offering up to try and placate us. "A civil union is just as good as a marriage, but without the name" they say, which is just simply flat out false. There is no set standard for civil union, it's the gag prize, undefined, and unknown, there's no guarantee that one state's civil union will be the same as the next, nor that any of them would grant any protections at all, and indeed there's no obligation for them to be anything like a civil marriage. I'd submit that a civil union couldn't even provide the same protections as a marriage even if it tried. Many employers offer health care benefits to an employee's spouse (or married partner) of their own volition. Is there any guarantee that they'd uniformly offer the same to someone's domestic partner? I certainly don't think that we can say that they would. Offering up civil unions as a compromise is saying no more than "please take this slightly lesser form of discrimination as a token of our desire for you to shut up about rights and equality" and in my view they are a completely unacceptable alternative.
EDIT:
stupid spell checker! Shouldn't you have caught the fact that I typed begines rather than begins? I blame this entirely on Microsoft! Yes, it's their fault and none of my own for being a sloppy speller in the first place.
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