Under law unions get it done. Religions should define what marriage is, NOT the government. Don't force your religious views on others.

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Even if NJ calls it ‘marriage’ it will still be unequal because it would not be recognized by other states or by the federal government. You will need several new faces on the Supreme Court before that will change.

If it is really ‘equality’ you are after, then the legal relationship now known as marriage should be given a different name and made available to everyone to form with whomever they choose.

Why shouldn’t two siblings who never married and now live together be able to form the same legal partnership as a married couple? Shouldn’t it be available to two women whose husbands have left them and who have now formed a new household so they can have the same rights and benefits their ex-husbands have with their new wives?

If you are not willing to extend these rights to everyone, and not just the coupled, then you are ultimately making the same argument the ‘sanctity of marriage’ people are making in order to keep these same rights to themselves.

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First, the author's argument leaves out why the state of New Jersey is not prosecuting the 1 out 7 employers who are not recognizing civil unions.

But the larger solution might be to get state government out of the marriage business altogether. Perhaps the state should ONLY issue civil union licenses for all, and get rid of the marriage license.

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How come the only way for homosexuals to gain acceptance, much less medical and other benefits, in this society as a loving pair (or potentially more) is via a historically heterosexual institution? In this sense, the strong-desire for gay marriage is a desire only fulfilled by a certain identification with heterosexual dictates about with whom and how we associate on a long-term basis. In otherwords, it's part of heteronormative agenda.

Heterosexuals and even some homosexuals get up in flames-- no pun intended-- with talk of gay marriage, but I think it would be far more subversive if homosexuals defined a new institution altogether for managing and giving meaning to long-term partnerships. Such an invention would not be for the sake of homosexuals, in that it would be "for them," but equally available to heterosexuals and otherwise. The point would not be merely to not-capitulate to the marriage form for homosexual relations, but to de-centralize the form for all relations.

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A Heteronormative Agenda will keep in place the legal arguments about "natural law" that are used to exclude a whole range of rights from civil rights (the old antimiscegenation laws) to environmental rights (vs property rights...screw the sea the environment, sea creatures, peoples whose socieities are tribally based). Basically, who is a person? Who is a citizen?

The first choice of the ruling class is themselves and their corporations (naturally-no pun intended) and then "fetuses". From The Declaration of Independence to The Emancipation Proclamation, 87 years passed. From The Emancipation Proclamation to The Civil Rights of Act of 1964, another 101 years passed before all adult African-Americans were permitted to enter the franchise.

I have had the good fortune to live in America and to live in post-war Europe (Italy in particular) as well as to spend considerable time non-western societies. From my observations, I have tentatively concluded that until the ordinary citizens of the United States, stop allowing themselves to be distracted by corporate marketing psychology and the political propaganda that promotes the Heteronormative Agenda and actually demands change of laws that favor the corporate class (get corporate financing out of politics, dissolve corporate ownership of the media and public airwaves, and demand strong anti-trust laws that specifically govern media ownsership, eliminate the potential of political action committees to use money to influence politics, ensure stricter oversight scrutiny of all three branches of government, and reassert the separation of church and state, then the Heteronormative Agenda will continue to dominate. It is just one tool in a myriad of tools in the arsenal of oligarcy used to maintain the status quo for those who continue to arrange for themselves privleged positions "to rule" and "to rob" the rest of us.

Can you imagine Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama actually supporting the right to gay marriage? How much would it cost us? Where would we get the money to pay them? On the Internet?

When you hear the argument that if marriage is extended to gay people, then heterosexual marriage will lose something, it's true. It's true in the sense that those who rule the rest of us will lose a tool to pit gays and non-gays against each other while they continue to rob us of our democracy, our commonwealth and our personal wealth. Until Universal Health Care is considered a human right in this country...get the picture?

I am not foolish enough to hold my breath waiting for the day when Hilliary or Barrack liberate me to marry my loved one and bring him into the United States as my spouse. Pardon me but 40 acres and Mule is not a promise of anything other than the opportunity to live a life of fighting at the subsistence level in a hostile culture and we barely have any buses left upon which I can ride in the back! And I'm white! Go figure? It's still all about Ango-Saxon hegemony. I'd invite you to sue me but, I'm a little tired of watching working-class and middle-class Americans waste their money suing each other to distraction!

In my opinion, since the Reagan Era, Americans have lost their ability (and in many cases their rights) to influence their government through political discourse. We're too busy building prisons and suing each other not to mention invading places like Grenada, Panama, and Iraq! 50 years ago we were busy building atomic bomb shelters in our cellars. All are distractions!

What is wrong with Kansas IS wrong with America. It's the dark of side Disneyworld you live in. What a bunch of fools we've become! Goodnight and Good Luck and I'm lucky enough to have the means and access to head for less hostile locales. I'm over 50 and I'm not holding my breath while the rest of you get your acts together.
Jude Rene Montarsi

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Back in 1995, when I was traveling with a group of activists, protesting the Republicans' "Contract On America," I said that though I couldn't support same-sex marriage, I had no problem with civil unions...which is Jimmy Carter's position today.

Recently, I told my friend Greg (who is gay) that I don't even have a problem with same-sex marriages, as long as religious institutions aren't forced to recognize them. Sean Hannity once warned viewers of a future in which churches that fail to recognize same-sex marriages would lose their tax-exempt status. Greg dismissed Sean Hannity's words as right-wing propaganda.

Civil unions are more palatable to conservatives. My friend Dave Browning, a conservative pro-life Republican in San Diego, once said the definition of marriage--an institution which has lasted thousands of years--should not be changed in the name of political correctness. When I brought up civil unions as an alternative, he couldn't raise any objections.

Opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes argue that if we fail to limit marriage to one man and one woman, what's to stop us from legalizing incest or polygamy? Incest can be banned as unhealthy for the gene pool, but polygamy is (and has been) an accepted institution throughout history, in many parts of the world.

Church & State, the periodical put out by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, once quoted a conservative Christian as having admitted that once you leave God's design out of the argument...there's really no reason to limit marriage to one man and one woman.

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As a legal institution, marriage must be abolished. It doesn't just discriminate against us gays, but to all single people as well, gay or straight. Why are singles discriminated against at all?

As gays it should be more obvious to us to rethink the way things are than to beg for crumbs at the table. The entire institution of marriage is rotten to the core, and was invented as a way for men to move wealth between families, via women.

Straights will NEVER let us encroach upon their privilege; it is precious to them. They just might be willing, however, to let the leviathan State remove itself from their relationships.

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because they're not the same thing as weddings!

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to "protect" marriage...is to get the government out of the marriage business completely.

The idea of marriage licenses was brought up as a way to keep races apart - now the politicians use it to keep other people apart.

It makes me sick.

Why do we all keep going to these people for a permission slip to marry? I for one, refuse to get married, because I refuse to legitimize the idea that the government can give me permission.

And, what do we have permission to do once we get that license that we didn't have permission to do the day before? Nothing. It's a sham, it's a shame, it's a money making scheme, and it's a way for politicians to give themselves power over your personal lives.

That's my rant. If you want to read more, this is a good article:

"Here's How to Defend Marriage" - click here

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I read all the articles and blogs and comments, and nowhere does anyone bring up what, I think, is an extremely important issue regarding civil unions as an alternative to marriage: immigration. My foreign national husband is only allowed to be here, legally, because he's married to me. This marriage is acknowledged by the federal government because my husband and I are of different genders. If we had the misfortune of being a same-sex couple, we would not have the option to live together in my country OR his. THAT, to me, is a perfect demonstration of how this prejudice (and it's nothing but that) has a real impact on the GLBT community.
I just thought that someone should mention this.

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"But some are more equal than others."
George Orwell


Ian

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And actually, it's probably more than 1 out of 7. The 1 out of 7 figure comes from 191 complaints reported to Garden State Equality (out of 1,359 civil-union couples) -- and chances are excellent that not everyone who's having problems is reporting it.

No, chances are excellent that many of the complaints are pretty frivolous. And what are they? The link doesn't give any -- although, interestingly, it's much more cautious with its language than this article. Nowhere in the gay press have I seen any examples of what the "1 in 7" are, but the 1 in 7 figure is quoted relentlessly.

Funny, but it works the other way too: Massachusetts businesses that formerly provided domestic partner benefits have now taken the "Get Married or Else" position, and not everybody is happy with that either.

Isn't it it nice that our insecure GLBT "leaders" have nothing better to do than to hijack all our community's resources in their never-ending quest to prove to straights how normal & bourgeoius gays are? Ah well, after they doom the next Democratic presidential nominee like they destroyed Kerry, we'll have another 2 or 3 states in the marriage column! Who cares about Iraq and health care when you can have marriage? (zzzzzzz)

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Isn't it curious that while the gay marriage debate has raged, straight people are happier with cohabitation than ever? The usual thing now seems to be the straight couple lives together for 5 or 6 years before marriage. Apparently they're saving up money for the party. (Yeah, I know, women are supposed to get mad if you call a garish, obscenely expensive wedding a "party" -- I saw it on "Friends" when Monica got mad at Chandler.) On the plus side, nowadays straights have often reproduced before the marriage, so that way they can use their own kids as "ringbearers" and dress them up in Frodo outfits or something really cute like that.

But aren't these cohabitating straight couples missing out on all these supposed thousands & thousands of built-in, government-sponsored benefits of marriage? How come they never think of that? How come articles are never written about that?

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As a nonmonogamous heterosexual, I've followed this issue with interest.

I believe that as long as legal marriage exists, it should be equally available to all, but I think a better idea would be to abolish legal marriage altogether.

It's not the government's place to define, regulate, promote, or mandate any particular relationship form by extending legal benefits to that form, excluding all others.

Some might agree in principle that it's not up to the government to define what a valid relationship is through legal marriage, but point out that marriage is about more than simply legitimizing a particular form of sexual relationship. There are a large number of practical benefits our government extends to legally married couples. Such benefits include tax breaks, health insurance benefits, next of kin rights, immigration issues, and so on.

Because of such benefits, most people are unwilling to abandon the idea of legal marriage altogether, even if they agree that legal marriage is a governmental invasion of privacy into people's personal lives.

Marriage has traditionally been understood as having two components: civil and religious. Some have proposed that "marriage" should be understood as the religious part only; that the civil part should be designated as "Civil Union", for both straights and gays.

Civil Unions clearly establish that the relationship is an intimate/sexual one. They basically duplicate marriage by making each partner liable for the welfare of the other and are usually not recognized outside of the state or country which created the statutes.

But the problem remains that the government is still defining what a legitimate intimate relationship is, as well as the terms of the relationship. It would still be limited to the monogamous, and would remain subject to governmental involvement when being dissolved.

But there's another way. Instead of having to choose among legal marriage, civil union, or retaining privacy while forgoing legal marriage benefits, people can choose to form a relationship LLC .

Marriage is based on family law, LLCs are based on partnership law and the legal arrangement its members agree to. Marriage is presently available only to one man and one woman. LLCs are available to everyone.

The advantages of an LLC over marriage/civil union are that those in a Relationship LLC are NOT declaring a sexual relationship; they can decide how much and what resources they wish to share WITHOUT making themselves totally liable for each other's welfare; and a Relationship LLC can be dissolved without a legal divorce.

In other words, the LLC would address the legal benefits now conferred only by legal marriage, but whatever sexual relationship the members have, if any, would remain private and not subject to government regulation. In addition, those involved would decide individually what benefits and responsibilities the relationship contains on a case by case basis, instead of having it decided for them in a "one size fits all" manner in the way that marriage is currently defined.

Those who want public recognition of their unions are still free to have marriage ceremonies, religious or not, but they'd have no legal standing, without government involvement of any kind.

To me, this would be the best of both worlds. All forms of intimate relationships between consenting adults would be on an equal footing and would remain private, free from government regulation. And such relationships would be able to legally gain benefits of their choosing now limited only to heterosexual, monogamous married couples.

Visit Relationship LLC at:

Relationship LLC

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The fanatical halfwits who oppose gay marriage. Now, just imagine those same lamebrains are in charge of everything. Uh, wait a minute; they ARE in charge of everything, aren't they? Never Mind!

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Be careful what you wish for.

plur

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FYI, the legal reason that employers don't have to recognize civil unions is a federal law called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) that is designed to prevent states from passing laws that "relate to" employee benefit plans, including health plans. State laws that affect employee benefit plans are "pre-empted" as a matter of federal law. If the benefit plan provides health or other benefits to married couples, the fact that the state passes a civil unions law can be ignored by the plan under the ERISA pre-emption doctrine because it would "relate to" the plan by expanding eligibility in a way that the plan sponsors did not intend. You either have to pass federal law modifying ERISA or pressure individual employers to amend their plans. Incidentally, this is the same reason you can't sue your HMO -- state tort laws that would allow suits against HMOs providing services to an employee health plan are "pre-empted" by ERISA.

On another note, I got married in a civil ceremony in the DC courthouse. "Marriage" is not just a religious issue and no one is telling religions what types of marriages they have to recognize. Its simple discrimination -- the state allowing some people to get the legal and contractual benefits of marriage but not others.

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Besides not being equal in the eyes of everyone, civil unions don't give the over 1000+ federal rights that marriage grants. I don't understand why no one challenges the democrats (and republicans) on this issue. Issues like your social security benefits that won't go to your partner, or if your partner is from another country, you can't sponser them to be a citizen, etc. These are very important rights and freedoms granted to married people.
Until we have marriage rights, we won't be equal in the eyes of the law or the eyes of all US citizens. In other countries, such as the Netherlands, none of this is an issue: all citizens, single or married, have these same rights. They can designate a recipient, brother, sister, friend or partner, to receive these benefits.
Why does this have to be equated to religious marriage, especially when there are gay churches and congregations that recognize gay marriages? It's not the church; it's our so last season government that can't get it right vs. our forefathers from over 200 years ago who separated all this. How sad.
Barry, Disillusioned in Houston, TX. Bush country.

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"In other countries, such as the Netherlands, none of this is an issue: all citizens, single or married, have these same rights. They can designate a recipient, brother, sister, friend or partner, to receive these benefits."

This seems the logical solution to equality of those benefits that ought to be available to everyone. Anyone ought to be able to designate a beneficiary of their choice. But remember, you who invoke the practices of other times and cultures against our current understanding of "marriage," that all such legalized benefits are really of very recent genesis.

But as for the estate known as marriage, that is a matter not of "rights," but of qualifications. Marriage uniquely denotes a union of complementary opposites capable -- at least in theory -- of producing offspring. (And that offspring ought to be the proof that this relationship is permanently committed and indissoluble. )

Regardless how much the marriage relationship is circumvented, mimicked, abused, defiled, desecrated in every conceivable way, still there must be a designation for this estate that does not apply to any other.

Perhaps it would be best to keep the designation "marriage" in religious institutions, and let the government just deal with the civil rights aspects of relationships. I am probably more outraged at churches caling themselves "Christian" that are failing to uphold the sanctity of marriage, than I am at secular movements that seek to desecrate it.

But all the militancy, all the signs, all the clenched fists and shouting about "rights" will never, never persuade me that the title "marriage" belongs to any other coupling that that which meets at least the basic qualification of being a union of complementary opposites.

Footnote: Do you have any idea how often I have been cussed out as a "liberal"? I genuinely think; I refuse to just march in rank with any political bloc.

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