Welcome to Gaia! ::

Problem: Society largely defines "marriage" as a religious institution, a holy union between man and woman, ordained by God. But where does this leave the homosexual community? Where does this leave a gay couple, whose love is no less valid than that of a straight couple? Most churches in existence today do not perform wedding ceremonies for gay couples, and the majority of the United States recognizes no form of legal union for homosexual couples. While tolerant churches do exist, and while some states have written into law provisions which protect and grant equal rights to the GLBT community, more and more states are passing laws which prohibit and deny the GLBT community the same basic rights to which we should all be entitled, up to and definitely including marriage rights.

Solution: The Government should extend the exact same rights, benefits, and responsibilities to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, granting a legal status exactly identical to the current legal definition of marriage, but without any socio-religious implications. In essence, create a brand new marital status, a purely legal union between two consenting adults, regardless of sexual orientation. In essence, "marriage," but under a different name, and extended to all couples.

Many of those who oppose such a concept claim that to legalize gay marriage would be an infringement on the religious rights of the opposition, because marriage is a religious institution, subject to the laws of God(s), not men. This, simply, is incorrect. Marriage was a social and financial institution before it was a religious one, and no one religion can claim to have invented it. Still, because the religious aspect of today's definition of marriage cannot be denied, we must find a way to compromise. The only compromise that can be made, in my opinion, is to finally and definitively seperate the two statuses, leaving one as a legal status, and the other as a religious status, with no direct interaction between the two.

I propose that all couples, gay and straight, should be granted a form of 'legal union', which would be exactly identical to today's current legal definition of marriage, in that it would confer all the same rights, privilages, and responsibilities involved, but would be in no way considered a religious institution. In this way, the law would have no bearing on religious unions, and religious unions would have no validity in the eyes of the law.

This would effectively seperate church and state when it comes to marriage, in that it would grant the legal status to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, while maintaining the religious sanctity of traditional marriage in the eyes of the church, insofar as that the religious aspect of marriage is left up to the individual churches to hand out as they see fit.

Consider, we already have a system like this in place today. To get married today, a couple merely has to obtain a marriage license, fill it out, have a ceremony performed in front of a legally ordained minister or Justice of the Peace, turn it in to the government, and voila they are legally married. To be legally married in the United States of America, a religious ceremony need never be performed. But to make that marriage valid in the eyes of their God(s), couples often choose to have a religious ceremony performed. To make my proposition reality, it would be a simple matter of extending marriage licenses (which would have to be renamed to something like union licenses to preserve the sanctity of the religious term "marriage" wink to gay couples as well. At that point, making a union valid in the eyes of their God(s) would be totally dependant on a couple's ability to find a church willing to perform a ceremony. This would mean that even gay Christians could get married, if they could find a minister willing to perform the ceremony.

Same legal benefits, exact same legal status. The only difference would be from a religious aspect, and even that could be overcome.

Frequently Asked Questions

Occasionally I find myself answering the same questions over and over again. Some of the most notorious of these questions have been put here in an easy-to-use FAQ. Check back here occasionally, as new questions may be added.

Q.) Civil unions, while legally equal, will not be seen as socially equal to a marriage.

A.) This is true. But, in the end, the only thing that really matters in the immediate future is the legal rights, responsibilities, and privileges that would be granted. At the very least, it would give gays and lesbians a legal backing from which to start trying to work on society. Consider, the civil rights movements ended up getting laws changed before society was ready to accept the new laws. It's a lot easier to change a few laws than it is to change a few hundred million people's minds.

Q.) Some gays will want to marry in the eyes of their God(s). Some Christians feel it is perfectly fine with Scripture to allow this. What about people like that?

A.) I keep getting questions like this, even though I've been very clear on the matter. Of course a gay or lesbian couple could make their union valid in the eyes of their God(s), but that would have absolutely nothing to do with the license they would obtain, and would have no influence on, nor be influenced by, the legal system after that point. It would be seperation of church and state that we are suppose to have.

Q.) What if the gay couple was not religious, could they not get married? What if they were religious, but not Christian?

A.) Of course they could still get married, though under the new laws that would be present, you wouldn't exactly call it a marriage anymore. It would be a legal union. As far as actually get married is concerned, once the legal union was obtained, it would be a simple matter of finding a willing chuch and minister of whatever religion you follow to perform a joining ceremony or wedding.

Q.) If we were to name this legal institution a civil or legal union, we couldn't go around calling it a marriage, because at that point it's not a marriage anymore. And if people did go around calling it a marriage when it's not, wouldn't that upset religious individuals?

A.) As far as legal matters went, you're right in saying that we couldn't call the legal union a marriage. For one, if you never have the joining or religious ceremony, you wouldn't technically be married, you'd just have a legal union. But that doesn't really matter, because being 'married' wouldn't be any different than just having a legal union, as far as the government would be concerned. However, in casual conversation, there is no reason you couldn't just refer to your union as a marriage to make explanations and conversations easier. Also, the definition of marriage is going to fluctuate from person to person, even in the current system. Because marriage is a religious institution, it would naturally be different for each person, depending on what your religion says about marriage. That said, there is very little reason why any couple with a legal union couldn't find someone willing to perform a religious ceremony of their choosing, whether it be an open-minded Christian church, or a Pagan religion, or something based entirely on your own personal beliefs. The trick is to get the legal status set in stone, or at least government-issue paper, and leave the religious aspect to the individual couples.

Q.) What about Transgendered individuals? Would this proposal benefit them?

A.) Yes, in fact, it would. Transgendered individuals who have not yet decided which gender they feel most comfortable as, or those who are currently undergoing the various phases of gender-reassignment procedures, or those who are already married and wish to undergo the procedures, would all benefit from this proposal, in that they would no longer have to worry about the legal repurcussions of such a shift. Those who aren't married wouldn't have to worry about not being able to get married, if after the reassignment they are attracted to members of the same sex. And those who are married wouldn't have such a hard time going through the legal procedures necessary to change their gender on official government documents. Further, people who are born with the reproductive organs of both males and females would also benefit for these same reasons, because 'declaring' a gender for these poeple is often quite tricky, and I think always requires surgery in the end.

Q.) Who is the wife, who is the husband?

A.) I disagree completely with the above concept. I want to make it very clear that homosexuality is the physical attraction a person feels for another person of the same sex. There is no wife in a gay relationship. There is no husband in a lesbian relationship. The implication here is that a relationship can only work if it's between a man and a woman, or a "masculine" individual and a "feminine" individual. You cannot understand the nature of a homosexual relationship if you're locked in that frame of mind. Instead, try to think of relationships in terms of dominant and submissive roles. You have situations where one partner is in control, the other is along for the ride. Traditionally, it has been accepted that the "masculine" is the dominant, the "feminine" the submissive, but this is a completely sexist ideology. In any healthy relationship, the dominant and submissive roles must be flexible between partners, whether it be a male/female or a male/male or female/female relationship. That, I think, answers your question.

Q.) In the case of divorce, who gets allimony?

A.) Allimony is not decided by sex, but by income. However, I could understand why you'd make that mistake. Typically, men in our society do make more money than women, so they tend to end up paying allimony. Further, women tend to get custody of children, and so their financial burden is heavier (in theory). At any rate, you get the idea. Allimony is based on income, which ever partner makes the most money pays the allimony.

Q.) Wouldn't the ensuing legal battles after a gay marriage divorce clog the already overflowing judiciary system to the point of explosion?

A.) Less than 10% of the American population is gay. Not all of that 10% (or less) is going to want to get married. Not all of those who do get married are going to get divorced. You see where I'm going with this? Of course you're going to have more divorces taking place, you've got more people getting married in the first place. But the increased number of divorces would be so small, relatively speaking, as to have no significantly measurable impact on the judiciary system.

Q.) This sounds like "seperate but equal." Systems like that are just homophobia in disguise; are you suggesting that we seperates the homosexual community from the straight community?

A.) Scroll back up, read the first post, and this time read for content. I'm going to hazard a guess that you completely missed the point of the proposal, at best, but more likely didn't understand it at all. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I'm tired of having to explain this very basic concept to otherwise intelligent people. Still, I'm going to break it down here one more time. My proposal involves two basic principles:

1.) First, we seperate the religious institution of marriage from the legal institution of marriage. This is important, because the two forms of union should be seperated anyway. Religious unity and government-recognized unity are (or should be) two different things. So the first step is make a distinction between them.

2.) Give the church control over religious unions, because that's their realm anyway. That means that the Church gets its way as far as marriage in the eyes of God (and individual churches can still wed gay and lesbian couples as they see fit). Give control over legal unions to the government, allowing them to control government-recognized marriage much the way they do now.

3.) Extend the new legal unions to ALL couples, regardless of sexual orientation. All regardless of sexual orientation. All couples regardless of sexual orientation. All couples regardless of sexual orientation. Could I possibly emphasize that any more than I already have? The new legal unions would be extended to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, and no other form of union would be recognized by the government. In this way, you are making a distinction between two different types of union, but only one union actually matters to the government, and it is available to all couples regardless of sexual orientation.

This too would be perfectly acceptable. The only thing this proposition would really entail is the fact that all couples, gay and straight, would get Civil Unions, instead of Marriages. Then, once united in the eyes of the government, they could be united in the eyes of whatever deity they choose, if they should so choose that is.

In essence, I guess a better way of saying it is that the religious asepct of a marriage should be defined by those who practice it. So, perhaps marriage shouldn't always be defined as one man and one woman. The definition would be flexible depending on the religion, and the people following it, and how they interpret its teachings. This allows for gay christians to get married after they've obtained a civil union.

As for people still being able to get married, I never said that marriage should not exist, just that it should become more of an option after the fact. And you're right about one thing, it wouldn't immediately be considered the equal of marriage, but you're also partially wrong about that too. For one, as far as the law is concerned, which is the only thing that should matter, it would be considered equal because everyone would have to attain a civil union. As far as the law would be concerned, all couples would be equal. That said, it may never get to the point that Christian couples considered gay couples who aren't 'married' to be their equals. The notion of social equality would be a very flexible one, depending who you were asking. But the notion of legal equality would be concrete, regardless of who you ask.

Yes, you are confused. Let me explain. Currently, any straight couple can go get a marriage license, fill it out, turn it in to the government, and be officially married. However, until they perform the wedding ceremony, they are not married in the eyes of god. I propose that all couples, gay or straight, be allowed to get married legally, but change the name of these 'marriages' to civil unions, or legal unions, or something like that. Then, once a couple has this legal union, they could go have a religious ceremony making their union valid in the eyes of god, assuming they could find a religious institution who was willing to perform the ceremony. Naturally, almost any straight couple could find someone willing, but it would be difficult for a gay couple to find one.