Muse – Marriage and Union: Clarifying

Good response yesterday and much to consider. I’m quite pleased.

There are some valid musings that deserve some attention and a much welcomed bit of personal experience that helps quite a bit.

I see no reason to make any distinctions. What about people who get married to have children but never get around to it, or are infertile? Do we revoke their full-committment license?

Marraige leads to family values. If we really want family values, we should encourage marraige between people of whatever gender they happen to be.

Love, [Lincoln]

I think the idea more is a commitment to raising children. Adoption should be valid, no? It doesn’t have to be physical reproduction, it’s just a commitment to bringing up a family (which includes but is not limited to the commitment to the other ‘spouse’). -NinaV

Semantics!!! Marriage or Union is irrelevant. The issue is to have equality for all people. Sure call it a union for people who don’t want children as long as gay people who do want children could be MARRIED! Procreation is not the purpose of marriage. And it is an “insult” to have to call my union with my partner something other than what it is to appease the masses. Fair is fair. [gayboi_n_TX]

Now, this is a much needed spot of clarification. As NinaV noted, this is more a restructuring of marriage itself to better acclimate to it’s true, secular purposes in society. The monolithic institution of marriage would be separated into two tiers.

#1. Union: This would be a basic, mutual agreement between two consenting adults to a life together. No matter the gender pairing. The two would get all the perks of being together, save for ‘family related’ ones like tax breaks and such.

#2. ‘Marriage’: Personally, I think that a new name needs to be generated for this one. This is sort of like an upgrade. This is, like Union, open to any gender pairing. That has to be emphasized to make sure it’s understood. It comes about when children enter the matter. IT has nothing to do with procreation or biology as the kids can come of birth, adoption or any other legal means. This one adds in tax breaks and other benefits that are meant to ease the fiscal burden of child rearing.

Any suggestions for a more appropriate name for this are welcome, I’m drawing blanks.

The key here is to both allow full, unrestricted equality for homosexuals and heterosexuals, while encouraging the family aspect which has most conservative opponents up in arms. Both heterosexual and homosexual couples are encouraged to raise kids, but aren’t denied mutual benefits for a couple if they don’t.

I would think gayboi_n_TX might have misunderstood what was meant. I don’t like playing semantic games. The semantics in this are merely limited to emphasizing the aim of each tier of this new system. IT isn’t mean to placate homosexuals with only half equality. It involves a full restructuring of the institution of marriage, in which the two tiers are open to everyone and are matched to the mindsets of these two tiers of human pairing. Those who just want to be couples and those who want to raise a full family.

Hm, what a great idea. Regarding the Scandinavian model though, I doubt whether the gay marriage thing is responsible for the decline in marriage or the rise in children out of ‘wedlock’. When I was in Scandinavia in the 80’s I was told “Well, we just don’t see the reason for marriage. We support the children together, we do the same things that married couples do, but we’re a socialisty country and we support everyone equally, so really the ‘benefits’ of a legal marriage are relatively few.” This was in Denmark in 1985.

Interestingly, there has been a decline in Christianity (no matter what the Falwells tell you), and a return to more simple belief structures which don’t force a ‘marriage’ system. People bond with hearts, not law. In the US Poverty IS a hugs problem, but One cannot blame gay marriage for poverty. In point of fact, most gay couples I know are dual income families (especially the male couples) who are NOT part of the ‘underclass’. Gay marriage also cannot explain the rise in teenage, and young twenties single mothers. Obviously the majority of the ‘accidental’ pregnancies were not “turkey baster” (My gay friend says this about her daughter so don’t blast me for the term) babies.

My own two cents, for whatever pennies are worth nowadays.

~Kind Thoughts~ [Karalys]

Hmmm..

Out-of-wedlock births don’t necessarily mean the fall of the empire; absentee parents do. At least in Sweden, many couples live their entire lives without marrying, and have families. I am not sure why they choose not to marry, but they are committed couples. – Scandinavia Stats from Stanford.edu

It seems that may have some significant weight to it. I would wonder at some data on the number of stable families rather than the number of straight marriages that exist in Scandinavia. Much respect to Karalys for bringing this to our attention.

I’m feeling quite a bit more positive about this suggestion given to me. It seems to work well. The only issue would be those activists who believe a family with two mommies or two daddies would be wrong. I wonder if it would be possible to get this sort of logical reform into the legal system.